SULTAN MEHMOOD

Why do some societies build capable states and accountable legal institutions, while others remain governed by weak institutions and unconstrained power?

Introduction. I am an associate professor of economics at the New Economic School in Moscow, where I joined as an assistant professor in January 2021. I received my Ph.D. in Economics from France in October 2019. Previously, I studied in the Netherlands, Italy, and Pakistan. My work has been published in leading scientific and economics journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, The Economic Journal, and Nature Human Behavior, among others.

Research Fields: My primary fields are Development Economics and Political Economy, and I use natural and field experiments to study how law, politics, and history shape economic development.

Research Agenda: I study some of the central questions in development and political economy: how states build capacity, how courts constrain power, and why weak institutions persist. My work uses large-scale data, field experiments, and historical evidence to understand these institutional forces and what, if anything, can change them.

Post-PhD (Post-November 2019) Research Output: 8 Published Papers, 2 R&Rs, and 4 Papers Under Review.

Teaching: In Spring 2026, I taught Graduate and Undergraduate courses: Law and Economics, and Public Economics.

Contact Details:

Email: smehmood@nes.ru

Curriculum Vitae: Download (PDF)

Webpage: http://www.sultanmehmood.info/

Publications:

Mehmood, S. 2022. "The impact of Presidential appointment of judges: Montesquieu or the Federalists?" American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 14(4): 411–445.
Mehmood, S. and Seror, A. 2023. "Religious Leaders and Rule of Law". Journal of Development Economics, 160: 102974.
Mehmood, S, Seror, A., and Chen, D., 2023. "Ramadan Fasting Increases Leniency in Judges from Pakistan and India" Nature Human Behavior: 1-7; Cover Article.
Mehmood, S. and Ali, B., 2024. Judicial Capture. The Economic Journal, 134(659), pp.1287-1301.
Mehmood, S, Naseer, S., and Chen, D., 2024. "Altruism in Governance: Insights from Randomized Training for Pakistan's Junior Ministers." Journal of Development Economics, 170 (1).
Mehmood, S, Naseer, S., and Chen, D., 2024. "Teacher vaccinations enhance student achievement in Pakistan: The role of role models and theory of mind." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS. 121 (48)
Mehmood, Sultan, Shaheen Naseer, and Daniel L. Chen. 2025. "Transmitting Rights: Effective Cooperation, Inter-gender Contact, and Student Achievement." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. 17 (3): 107–30.
Mehmood, S., Marinichev, G., Khalid, S., Chen, D., and Kudaeva, M. 2026. "Contract Enforcement in a Stateless Economy." Journal of Development Economics, 182: 103802.

Revise and Resubmit Requests:

When Institutions Persist: Judicial Independence in an Unstable Political Order (with B. Ali) - Revise and Resubmit at American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.
AI Education as State Capacity: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan (with S. Naseer and D. Chen) - Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Development Economics.

Working Papers (selected):

Climate Shocks and State Formation: The 1970 Bhola Cyclone and the Birth of Bangladesh (with M. Mobarak) - [Download (PDF)]
The Policy Preferences of Senior Civil Servants (with S. Naseer, S. Kariv, and R. Fisman) - [Download (PDF)]
Saving the Separation of Powers: Evidence from the Lawyers’ Movement in Pakistan (with D. Chen) - [Download (PDF)]
Addiction and Economics of Illegal Markets (with A. Seror, and S. Ishiguro) - [Download (PDF)]
Ink and Ire: The Revolutionary Impact of Russian Literature (with V. Avetian) - [Download (PDF)]
Beneath the Ban of Abortion: Evidence from the USSR (with Y. Prokhorskoy and H. Zoabi) - [Download (PDF)]
Transmitting Terror: Radio and the Expansion of State Repression in Stalin’s Soviet Union (with Y. Prokhorskoy and J. Voth) - [Download (PDF)]

Drafts-in-Progress (selected):

1. Courts of Tomorrow: Evidence from a Nationwide Introduction of Generative AI (with E. Ash and C. Goessmann)

2. Why are University Campuses Targeted for Repression? Evidence from the Bangladesh Monsoon Revolution (with M. Mobarak)

3. When Justice Speeds Up: Task Optimization and System-Wide Effects of Digital Justice in Indonesia (with R. Ahmed and I. Rasul)

4. Strategic Deep State Repressions: Evidence from Pakistan (with N. Voigtländer)

5. Improving Governance through Citizen Feedback Technologies: Evidence from Pakistan (with S. Naseer and S. Vannutelli)

6. Secularization Backlash: A Tale of Two Coups (with R. Mirza and K. Zhuravskaya)

Independent Replication and Reproducibility Reports:

Replication and Reproducibility Report of “The Impact of Presidential Appointment of Judges: Montesquieu or the Federalists?” by the Institute for Replication (I4R) - [Download (PDF)]
Replication and Reproducibility Report of “Ramadan Fasting Increases Leniency in Judges from Pakistan and India" by the Institute for Replication (I4R) - [Download (PDF)]

Honors and Awards:

IOEA Best Paper Award: The impact of Presidential appointment of judges: Montesquieu or the Federalists?
AEA Best Paper Award: Ink and Ire: Revolutionary Impact of Russian Literature (with V. Avetian)

Non-Refereed:

Gethin, A., Mehmood, S., and Piketty, T., 2021. Social Inequality and the Dynamics of Political and Ethnolinguistic Divides in Pakistan, 1970–2018. Harvard University Press.

EARLY-STAGE RESEARCH PROJECTS

ARE JUDGES A JURY OF ONE? EVIDENCE FROM THE ABOLITION OF JURIES IN INDIA (with N. Kala)
JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE IN THE SHADOW OF TERRORISM: EVIDENCE FROM PAKISTAN'S ANTI-TERRORISM COURTS
JUDICIAL ACTIVISM: WHEN JUDGES REWRITE THE CONSTITUTION (with J. Goto)
GIFT DIPLOMACY (with Y. Prokhorskoy)
MENTAL HEALTH, TEACHER STRESS, AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT- Preregistered Trial at AEA RCT Registry
THE STRIKE OF THE RIGHTEOUS: THE IMPACT OF HATE LITERATURE ON RADICALIZATION (with S. Asad) - Preregistered Trial at AEA RCT Registry - Download (PDF)

Pre-Doctoral Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Terrorism and the Macroeconomy: Evidence from Pakistan (Pre-Doctoral Research: Bachelor's Thesis)

Pakistan with highest number of terrorism related deaths of any country over the past decade, the number exceeding the total terrorism related deaths for both the European and North American continents, offers an important setting to study impact of terrorism on the macroeconomy. Our estimates from a sample that covers over 4500 terrorist incidents and consequent 10, 200 deaths [from 1973 to 2010] imply that bouts of terrorist attacks led to both a short-run as well as medium-term adverse impact on key macroeconomic variables. It is estimated that cumulatively terrorism has cost Pakistan around 33.02 % of its real national income over the entire sample period and that terrorism costs Pakistan around 1 % of real GDP per capita growth every year. We find evidence consistent with the models that show that terrorism impacts the economy through a reallocation of resources from relatively more productive public spending to less productive defense spending.

Mehmood, S., 2014. Terrorism and the macroeconomy: Evidence from Pakistan. Defence and Peace Economics, 25(5), pp. 509-534.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Spring 2019: Statistical Reasoning and Causal Inference at Sciences Po (Masters Level)

Spring 2021: Empirical Political Economics at the New Economic School (Masters Level)

Spring 2022: Introduction to Law and Economics (Bachelor Level)

Spring 2022: Empirical Political Economics at the New Economic School (Masters Level)

Fall 2023: Data Science for Judges at the Federal Judicial Academy (Course Introduction)

*See resume for full teaching experience.

PUBLIC TALKS

Lawyers' Movement Chicago Law School (10 minutes) - Chicago, US.

Judicial Independence and Reforms in Pakistan 2022 (15 minutes) - Karachi, Pakistan

CEPR Political Economy and Development 2021 (30 mins Talk) - London, UK

Economics of Religion Workshop 2021 (15 minutes Talk) - Los Angeles, US

NBER Fall Meeting 2021 (6 Minutes Talk) - Boston, US

Why does Judicial Independence matter? (1 minute) - Oxford, UK

Google Sites

Report abuse