Jad Chaaban

Adjunct Associate Professor of Economics, American University of Beirut

Jad Chaaban is a French/Lebanese economist and public policy expert with more than fifteen years of academic and professional experience. He was an associate professor of economics and coordinator of the Applied Economics and Development Research Group at the American University of Beirut (AUB), where he also served as Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs and on core university committees, contributing to strengthening the quality of education and the welfare of the university community as a whole. He also held visiting research and teaching positions at INSEAD, Paris-Dauphine PSL University, the London School of Economics and the Toulouse School of Economics. He worked as an economist with the World Bank in 2004-2006, and served as an international consultant for various UN agencies (UNDP, UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF and WHO). In 2014-2015 he served as the Lead Author of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Arab Human Development Report 2016, and in 2018 as a member of the Advisory Board of UNDP’s Global Human Development Report (HDR). Dr. Chaaban holds a PhD in Economics from the Toulouse School of Economics, in addition to a Master’s in Environmental and Natural Resources Economics from the same university, and an MBA from ESCP Business School. His primary research interests are in development economics and industrial organization, and his extended interests include public economics of health, education and labour policies. His work focuses mostly on using tools in micro and applied economics to tackle public policy issues that affect the lives of the most vulnerable groups in society. He is also a polylingual who easily works in four languages (English, French, Arabic and Spanish), and a strong believer in inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural work and collaborations. A substantial part of his work has involved the development of international collaborative academic and research projects, and he has been successful in securing and managing extramural funding for a total of nearly 4 million USD during the course of his career. His interdisciplinary work has been published in several academic journals in disciplines including Economics, Area Studies, Demography, Agricultural Policy and Public Health. Dr. Chaaban regularly contributes to economic policy analysis on Middle Eastern and global development issues to various international institutions and UN agencies, and his research and advocacy work has often been featured in international media.