The department is a lively community that is recognised internationally as one of the top centres for research and teaching in development studies.

Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Adeel Malik is a development macroeconomist with a strong multi-disciplinary orientation. His research engages with questions of long-run development, political economy and economic history, with a special focus on Muslim societies. His work combines quantitative and qualitative research methods. Apart from engaging with cross-country empirics on development, he is trying to develop a broader research lens on the political economy of the Middle East. His most recent contribution to the field was an article on 'The Economics of the Arab Spring', which received the Best Paper Award. It has now been translated into Arabic and several other languages, and formed the basis for a dedicated story in The Economist magazine. Another emerging area of interest is the interplay between religion, land and politics in Pakistan, which he is exploring as part of an IFPRI-funded project on structural constraints to public goods provision in Punjab.
He also holds the Globe Fellowship in the Economies of Muslim Societies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, and is a Research Associate of the Centre for the Study of African Economies and the Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource-Rich Economies, both based at the Department of Economics. He co-directs the ERF Project on the Political Economy of Private Sector Dynamism in the Middle East, and serves as an associate editor of the Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (Middle East Economics and Finance).
Before joining ODID, he completed his doctorate in economics at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 2004. His previous research affiliations include: the Department of Economics, Oxford University (2004-05); Merton College (2002-03 and 2005-06); Center for International Development, Harvard University (2001), and Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre, Islamabad (1997-1999).
His research on the Middle East’s political economy has featured in CNN, Fortune Magazine, The Times London, Financial Times, and Gulf News. He strongly believes in the role of the public intellectual. In that spirit, he has engaged with a wider audience by occasionally contributing op-ed pieces to The New York Times, Project Syndicate, Al-Jazeera, Huffington Post, and Foreign Policy Magazine.
Teaching is more than a contractual obligation for Adeel. It is part of his intellectual mission, and a passion that sustains his existence in Oxford.He believes engaging with young scholars is one of the greatest privileges of being associated with Oxford University.
His teaching portfolio reflects an evolving interest in political economy, and spans three graduate programmes: the MPhil in Development Studies, the MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies, and the MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy. Some details are included below:
Additional teaching duties include selective undergraduate tutorials on Quantitative Economics for St Peter’s College students. He is also supervising graduate dissertations on various aspects of Middle Eastern political economy.
New Institutional Economics; political economy of Muslim societies; politics of the private sector in the Middle East.