Research

Publications in Peer-Reviewed Journals:

1. “Precolonial Elites and Colonial Redistribution of Political Power" (with Allison Hartnett). Forthcoming at American Political Science Review. Download here.

• Awarded the Best Faculty Paper on Entrepreneurship and Inclusion, American Political Science Association Section on Class and Inequality, 2021.

• Awarded the Best Paper (Honorable Mention), American Political Science Association Middle East and North Africa Section, 2022.

• Public Lecture: The Spring 2025 LSE Public Lecture Series.

2. “Trade, Slavery, and State Coercion of Labor: Egypt during the First Globalization Era.” Journal of Economic History, 2024, Vol. 84 (4), pp. 1107-1141. Download here.

• Featured in: LSE Research for the World.

• Featured in: Interview at Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra, Spain.

• Public Lecture: The 2020 Epstein Lecture, Department of Economic History, LSE.

3. “The Demand for Extraterritoriality: Religious Minorities in Nineteenth-Century Egypt” (with Cihan Artunç). Economic History Review, 2024, Vol. 77 (3), pp. 895-927. Download here.

4. “Refugees and the Education of Host Populations: Evidence from the Syrian Inflow to Jordan." (with Ragui Assaad and Thomas Ginn). Journal of Development Economics, 2023, Vol. 164 (103131). Download here.

• Featured in: VoxDev, Centre for Economic Policy Research.

5. "The Middle-Eastern Marriage Pattern? Malthusian Dynamics in Nineteenth-Century Egypt" (with Yuzuru Kumon). Economic History Review, 2023, Vol. 76 (4), pp. 1231-58. Download here.

• Featured in: African Economic History Network Blog.

6. “Taxing Identity: Theory and Evidence from Early Islam” (with Jean Tirole). Econometrica, 2021, Vol. 89 (4), pp. 1881–1919. Download the paper here and Supplemental Appendix here. The Webpage Appendix is here.

• Featured in: Broadstreet Blog.

7. “On the Road to Heaven: Taxation, Conversions, and the Coptic-Muslim Socioeconomic Gap in Medieval Egypt." Journal of Economic History, 2018, Vol. 78 (2), pp. 394-434. Download the latest working paper and online appendix here.

• Awarded the Economic History Association’s Arthur H. Cole Prize for the best Journal of Economic History article of the year in 2017--18.

• Public Lecture: Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, USA, 2018.

• Public Lecture: TSEconomist, Toulouse School of Economics, Toulouse, France, 2019.

8. “Does Improved Local Supply of Schooling Enhance Intergenerational Mobility in Education? Evidence From Jordan" (with Ragui Assaad). World Bank Economic Review, 2018, Vol. 32 (3), pp. 633–655. Download the latest working paper and online appendix here.

9. “Does Industrialization Affect Segregation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century Cairo” (with Christophe Lévêque). Explorations in Economic History, 2018, Vol. 67, pp. 40-61. Download the latest working paper and online appendix here.

10. “A New Economic History of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region.” Economics of Transition, 2017, Vol. 25 (2), pp. 149–163. Download the latest working paper here.

11. “Public Mass Modern Education, Religion, and Human Capital in Twentieth-Century Egypt.” Journal of Economic History, 2016, Vol. 76 (3), pp. 697-735. Download the latest working paper here. Download the online appendix here.

• Featured in: Alternative Policy Solutions, American University in Cairo.

• Featured in: The Forum Policy Portal, Economic Research Forum.

12. "The Reluctant Transformation: State Industrialization, Religion, and Human Capital in Nineteenth-Century Egypt.” Journal of Economic History, 2015, Vol. 75 (1), pp. 65-94. Download the latest working paper here. Download the online appendix here.

13. “A Pre-Colonial Population Brought to Light: Digitization of the Nineteenth-Century Egyptian Censuses.” Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, 2013, Vol. 46 (1), pp. 5-18. Download the latest working paper here.

• Public Lecture: Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), Cairo, Egypt, 2014.

• Public Lecture: National Archives of Egypt, Cairo, Egypt, 2009.

Working Papers:

1. “Connected National Capital: Industrial Policy and Corporate Performance in Egypt, 1890–1950." (with Cihan Artunç). Revision Requested at Journal of Development Economics. CEPR Discussion Paper 17424. Download here.

• Featured in Everything Economic History Podcast, Centre for Economics, Policy, and History (CEPH), Ireland.

2. "The Other First Wave: Elite Conflict and Democratization in Agrarian Autocracies." (with Allison Hartnett). CEPR Discussion Paper 20260. Download here.

3. "Religious Competition and Provision of Public Goods." (with Ashrakat Elshehawy).

Chapters in Edited Volumes:

1. “Boom and Bust: The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century” (with Sarah Wahby) in The Shifting Patterns of Migration in Africa. Edited by Ewout Frankema and Michiel de Haas. Routledge, 2022. Download here.

2. “The Middle East: Decline and Resurgence in West Asia,” in The Cambridge Economic History of the Modern World (Volume II: 1870-2010). Edited by Stephen Broadberry and Kyoji Fukao. Cambridge University Press, 2021. Download here.

3. “Islam and Economic Development: The Case of Non-Muslim Minorities in the Middle East and North Africa” in The Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies. Edited by Melanie Cammett and Pauline Jones. Oxford University Press, 2021. Download here.

4. “Socioeconomic Inequality across Religious Groups: Self-Selection or Religion-Induced Human Capital Accumulation? The Case of Egypt” in Advances in the Economics of Religion. Edited by Jean-Paul Carvalho, Sriya Iyer, and Jared Rubin. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Download here.

5. “Occupational Structure in Egypt in 1848-2006,” Under Review in Occupational Structure and Industrialization in a Comparative Perspective. Edited by Osamu Saito and Leigh Shaw-Taylor. Cambridge University Press, Under Review. Download here.

Book Reviews:

1. Platteau, Jean-Philippe, Islam Instrumentalized: Religion and Politics in Historical Perspective, Journal of Economic History, September 2019, Vol. 79 (3), pp. 906-7.

2. Rapoport, Yossef, Rural Economy and Tribal Society in Islamic Egypt: A Study of al-Nabulusi’s Villages of the Fayyum. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, Economic History Association, EH.net, July 2019.

3. Naiem A. Sherbiny and Omaima M. Hatem, State and Entrepreneurs in Egypt: Economic Development since 1805, Economic History Review, May 2017, Vol. 70 (2), pp. 685–6. 

4. Abbas, R. and A. El-Dessouky, The Large Landowning Class and the Peasantry in Egypt, 1837-1952, Journal of Economic History, September 2012, Vol. 72 (3), pp. 854-6.