Tarek Ghani is an assistant professor of strategy at Washington University's Olin Business School and a nonresident fellow of the Brookings Institution's Global Economy and Development Program. Tarek's research explores the private sector’s role in the diffusion of new technologies and navigating economic, political and social fragility. In particular, he has studied the social impact of digital payments on public and private organizations and how markets adapt to major frictions in the institutional environment. His research has appeared in top journals such as the American Economic Review, AEJ: Microeconomics, AEJ: Economic Policy, Journal of Politics, Management Science, and Review of Economics & Statistics.
Tarek is an associate of Princeton's Empirical Studies of Conflict Project and an affiliate of LSE's International Growth Centre and Wharton's ESG Initiative. During 2020-2021, he served as chief economist and Future of Conflict program director at the International Crisis Group, where he previously served as senior economic adviser. From 2015-2016, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs. From 2006-2009, he oversaw conflict prevention grants at the Humanity United foundation. He has worked with the Center for Global Development, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the United States Institute of Peace, and the World Bank.
At Olin, Tarek has taught MBA courses on strategy and business & government and Ph.D. seminars on organizational economics, non-market strategy, and global strategy. He holds a Ph.D. in Business & Public Policy from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. Tarek is a recipient of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans and the Harry S. Truman Scholarship.
Tarek's research has been supported by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, Alexander Soros Foundation, Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty, Innovations for Poverty Action, International Growth Centre, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, U.S. Agency for International Development, Weiss Family Fund in Development Economics, and the World Bank.