M. Abu Eusuf is holding the position of Professor & Former Chair in the Department of Development Studies at the University of Dhaka. He is the Director of ‘Centre on Budget and Policy’ at the University of Dhaka. He is also the Executive Director of a national think-tank Research and Policy Integration for Development (RAPID). He is an economist by training. He was awarded PhD in Development Policy and Management (Development Economics Cluster) from the University of Manchester as a Commonwealth Scholar. He also completed his MA in Development Studies at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Netherlands, under the UN fellowship program.

Md. Jahid Ebn Jalal is a senior research associate at South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM). As part of a study project supported by The Belt & Road Initiative and Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (ZUEL), he is employed as ‘Research Fellow’ at the Bureau of Socioeconomic Research & Training. At ZUEL, he is presently pursuing his PhD in World Economy. He formerly held positions as a ‘MEL Officer’ for WaterAid. In addition to earning his MSc in Economics from Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, he also earned his BSc and MS in Agricultural Economics from Bangladesh Agricultural University.

Sadiq Ahmed is Vice Chairman of the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh. He did his MSc from London School of Economics and PhD from Boston University. He held several key positions at the World Bank: Country Economist, Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa Region; Principal Economist, Indonesia, PNG and Pacific Islands, East Asia and Pacific Region; Lead Economist, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan; Country Director, Pakistan and Afghanistan Program; Chief Economist, South Asia Region; Sector Director, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, Finance and Private Sector, South Asia Region; and Senior Manager,Regional Programs, South Asia Region. He published several books and 30 plus articles in national and international journals, as well as in World Bank publications.

Thorsten Beck is Director of the Florence School of Banking and Finance and Professor at the European University Institute. He is a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the CESifo. Earlier, he was professor at Bayes Business School (formerly Cass) in London between and professor and the founding chair of the European Banking Center at Tilburg University. Previously, he worked for the World Bank, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the BIS, the IMF, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Commission, and the German Development Corporation. He is also Co-editor of the Journal of Banking and Finance and member of the Advisory Scientific Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board.

Sayema Haque Bidisha is Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Research Director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM). She obtained PhD from the University of Nottingham. Her broad areas of research are labour economics and development economics. She worked on several research projects on labour market, poverty and vulnerability, skill and education, youth population, gender and women empowerment, financial inclusion, migration and remittance, credit and food security, child marriage, etc. She also worked closely with the Government of Bangladesh in preparing various policy documents, for example Sixth Five Year Plan and Perspective Plan 2041 of Bangladesh. She published several articles/book chapters in peer-reviewed international publications.

François Bourguignon is Director of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and Emeritus Professor at the Paris School of Economics, where he previously held the position of director. From 2003 to 2007, he was Chief Economist and Vice President of the World Bank. He was also Chairman of the Institutional Diagnostic Project. He has vast experience in advising governments and international organisations. In addition, he is the author/editor of numerous books and articles in international economic journals: his work, theoretical and empirical, focuses mainly on the distribution and redistribution of income in developing and developed countries. During his career, he has received several scientific distinctions, such as the Dan David Prize in 2016.

Rafiqua Ferdousi is a PhD student at the UBC Political Science Department. She is passionate about using causal inference and insights to drive peace, justice, and social progress. She has published extensively in leading platforms. She has also been the recipient of the UBC President’s Academic Excellence and the Erasmus Mundus Awards. With her focus located at the intersection of Comparative Politics and International Relations, her research interest includes Political Institutions, Political Economy, Politics of Development, Culture and Identity, Behavioural Economics, and Quantitative and Multi-method Design.

Bazlul Haque Khondker is former Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Dhaka and Chairman of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM). He holds a PhD degree in Economics from the University of Warwick, England. His areas of expertise include analysis of poverty and social protection; micro-, meso-, and macrodata analyses for impact assessment and policy formulation; and assessing the trends in inter-generation equity using the National Transfer Account (NTA) methodology. He has also formulated the technical framework for the Five-Year Plans for Bangladesh. He has produced several reports and published articles, books on social issues including poverty and social protection, regional disparity, and economic and welfare impacts of public policy reforms.

Mirza M. Hassan is a political economist and Head of the Governance and Politics Cluster of BIGD, BRAC University. His research largely focuses on political development, state–business relations, urban governance and local governance, justice sector and human rights, and related issues in South Asia, Pacific region, and North Africa. He has more than 20 years of consulting experience on these issues for several national and international agencies. He is well versed in conducting political economy analysis, institutional and stakeholder analysis, and using mixed methods. He completed his PhD in Development Studies from the University of London, UK, and MA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA.

Christopher Heady is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Kent. He obtained his PhD at Yale University. He held academic positions at Yale, University College London, University of Bath, the Universities of Aarhus (Denmark), Queens (Canada), and Warwick. In June 2000, he joined the OECD and was Head of its Tax Policy and Statistics division until March 2009. He also worked for the IMF, the World Bank, the National Radiological Protection Board, the Asian Development Bank, the Department for International Development, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. His research interests are all related to the microeconomic analysis of public policy issues in both developed and developing countries, using both theoretical and empirical analysis.

Zubayer Hossen holds degrees in Economics from the University of Dhaka. His experiences as a professional are in the field of research and policy advocacy. Thus far, he has carried out analytical research on diverse issues including poverty, inequality, climate change, ocean economy, employment, sectoral productivity, RMG, governance, unpaid domestic works, social protection, innovative financing solutions for SDGs, green growth, etc. He is currently working as an economist at UNDP Bangladesh. Before joining UNDP, he worked for South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) and Nielsen Company (Bangladesh) Ltd., where he received training in economic and market research.

Elizabeth M. King is Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Managing Editor of the Journal of Development Effectiveness, and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She serves on the boards of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), Room to Read, and Education Commission-Asia; is technical adviser to Echidna Giving and the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, and a judge of the Yidan Prize Foundation. She was the World Bank’s global director for policy and strategic issues in education and acting vice president for human development sectors. She has published on human capital, labour markets, and gender. She received her PhD in Economics from Yale University.

Towhid I. Mahmood is a PhD candidate in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics in the Gordon W. Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources at Texas Tech University. Towhid earned his BSS in Economics from University of Dhaka in Bangladesh and a Masters in Applied Economics from Western Kentucky University. Prior to joining Texas Tech University, he served as a research economist on issues in Bangladesh at South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM). His research interests include economic development, new institutional thought, and corruption.

Kazi Maruful Islam is Professor at the Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Earlier, he served as faculty member of the Department of Public Administration, University of Rajshahi. He currently teaches Politics of Development, Qualitative Research Methodology, Public Policy Analysis, and Civil Society and Development. He has Masters of Philosophy from the University of Bergen, Norway, and Doctorate from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. With thematic interest in Local Governance, Urban Governance, and Climate Change Governance, he has worked as a governance specialist for various research projects within and outside Bangladesh.

Jaime de Melo joined the faculty of the University of Geneva in 1993 and emeritus since 2013. He is CEPR fellow and Senior Fellow at FERDI (Fondation pour les études et recherches dans le développement international). He was an economist in the World Bank research department (1980–2013), where he served as Division Chief and Manager (1990–2013). He served on editorial boards and was Editor of the World Bank Economic Review, 2005–2010. He has advised, inter alia, the Africa Development Bank, the European Commission, the IMF, USAID, and the Swiss government.

Dilip Mookherjee studied economics at Presidency College, Calcutta, and Delhi School of Economics and received his PhD in 1982 from London School of Economics. He taught at Stanford University from 1982 to 1989 and at Indian Statistical Institute in New Delhi from 1989 till 1995. Since 1995, he has been teaching at Boston University in the Department of Economics, besides directing the Institute for Economic Development since 1998. His main research interests are development, inequality, organisations, and political economy. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society and a fellow/affiliate of NBER, CEPR, and BREAD.

Jean-Philippe Platteau is Co-director of the Institutional Diagnostic Project. He is Emeritus Professor at the University of Namur (Belgium) and active member of the Center for Research in Development Economics (CRED). Jean-Philippe Platteau is the author of numerous journal articles and several books. Most of his work has been devoted to the study of the role of institutions in economic development and the processes of institutional change. He has always paid particular attention to informal institutions such as social norms, informal markets, and the rules of village societies, leading him to take an interest in the influence of non-economic factors and in problems located at the frontier of economics and other social sciences. His latest work focuses more specifically on the role of culture and religion.

Selim Raihan is Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the Executive Director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM). He received his PhD from the University of Manchester, UK. He is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, UK, and Member of the Board of Directors, Global Development Network. His publications include more than 100 articles and 10 books. He is in the editorial boards of the Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Journal of Asian Economic Integration, International Studies, and Journal of South Asian Development. He possesses vast expertise in empirical research on international trade, economic growth, poverty, labour market, macroeconomic policies, political economy, and climate change issues. He has worked for several national and international organisations.

Umar Salam is Principal Economist at Oxford Policy Management, based in Oxford, UK. Within the Economic Development and Institutions (EDI) programme, he served as a member of the Scientific Committee for the development of the Institutional Diagnostic. His research interests include economic growth, institutional economics, and science and technology policy in developing countries. He studied at the Universities of Oxford, where he received a DPhil in development economics, and Cambridge, where he was a researcher in algebraic geometry and string theory.

Eshrat Sharmin is a senior research associate at South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM). She has been working as a researcher in SANEM for five years. She has completed her master’s in Economics from Jahangirnagar University. Her area of research interest includes inequality, political economy, development economics, and labour economics, among others.