Islam, Asif M.

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Islam, Asif M.

Office of the Chief Economist, Middle East and North Africa

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Office of the Chief Economist, Middle East and North Africa

Last updated: December 19, 2024

Biography

Asif Islam is a senior economist for the Middle East and North Africa Region of the World Bank Group. His research focuses on private sector development. He has published in peer-reviewed journals on several dimensions of the private sector including entrepreneurship, technology, crime, informality, and gender. He has also published on fiscal policy, environment, and agriculture. He co-authored several reports including the World Development Report (2019) - The Changing Nature of Work, What's Holding Back the Private Sector in MENA? Lessons from the Enterprise Survey, and Uncharted Waters: The New Economics of Water Scarcity and Variability. He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Maryland-College Park, and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Computer Science from Macalester College.

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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Does Paternity Leave Matter for Female Employment in Developing Economies?: Evidence from Firm Data
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03) Amin, Mohammad; Islam, Asif; Sakhonchik, Alena
For a sample of 53 developing countries, the results show that women's employment among private firms is significantly higher in countries that mandate paternity leave versus those that do not. A conservative estimate suggests an increase of 6.8 percentage points in the proportion of women workers associated with the mandating of paternity leave.
Economic Growth and Crime against Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Developing Economies
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-02) Islam, Asif
Several studies have explored the relationship between economy-level crime rates or individual-level crime and economic growth. However, few studies have examined the relationship between economic growth and crime against firms. This study uses data for about 12,000 firms in 27 developing countries and finds that economic growth is negatively associated with crime. This relationship is stronger for small and medium firms than large firms. The study also explores several economy-wide factors and their influence on the growth-crime relationship for small and medium enterprises. The results are robust to various sensitivity checks.
Imports of Intermediate Inputs and Country Size
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-01) Amin, Mohammad; Islam, Asif
The paper analyzes the relationship between country size and the use of imported intermediate inputs by firms in 76 developing countries. Recent evidence indicates that the use of imported inputs can have a large, positive effect on productivity and growth, thus motivating a better understanding of the determinants of foreign inputs. The results confirm that, as is the case with exports, use of imported intermediate inputs is much higher at the extensive and intensive margins in small relative to large countries. The results for imported inputs are comparable in magnitude with those for exports.
Women Managers and the Gender-Based Gap in Access to Education: Evidence from Firm-Level Data in Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-05) Amin, Mohammad; Islam, Asif
Several studies explore the differences in men’s and women’s labor market participation rates and wages. Some of these differences have been linked to gender disparities in education attainment and access. The present paper contributes to this literature by analyzing the relationship between the proclivity of a firm to have a female top manager and access to education among women relative to men in the country. The paper combines the literature on women’s careers in management, which has mostly focused on developed countries, with the development literature that has emphasized the importance of access to education. Using firm-level data for 73 developing countries, the analysis finds strong evidence that countries with a higher proportion of female top managers also have higher enrollment rates for women relative to men in primary, secondary, and tertiary education.
Entrepreneurship and the Allocation of Government Spending Under Imperfect Markets
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2015-01) Islam, Asif
Previous studies have established a negative relationship between total government spending and entrepreneurship activity. However, the relationship between the composition of government spending and entrepreneurial activity has been woefully under-researched. This paper fills this gap in the literature by empirically exploring the relationship between government spending on social and public goods and entrepreneurial activity under the assumption of credit market imperfections. By combining macroeconomic government spending data with individual-level entrepreneurship data, the analysis finds a positive relationship between increasing the share of social and public goods at the cost of private subsidies and entrepreneurship while confirming a negative relationship between total government consumption and entrepreneurial activity. The implication may be that expansion of total government spending includes huge increases in private subsidies, at the cost of social and public goods, and is detrimental for entrepreneurship.
Does Mandating Nondiscrimination in Hiring Practices Influence Women's Employment? Evidence Using Firm-level Data
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-10) Amin, Mohammad; Islam, Asif
This study explores the relationship between mandating a nondiscrimination clause in hiring practices along gender lines and the employment of women versus men in 58 developing countries. The study finds a strong positive relationship between a nondiscrimination in hiring clause and women's relative to men's employment. The relationship is robust to several controls at the firm and country levels. The results also show sharp heterogeneity in the relationship between the nondiscrimination in hiring clause and women's versus men's employment, with the relationship being much larger in richer countries and in countries with more women in the population as well as among relatively smaller firms.
Absent Laws and Missing Women: Can Domestic Violence Legislation Reduce Female Mortality?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-04) Amin, Mohammad; Islam, Asif; Lopez-Claros, Augusto
This study contributes to the literature on legal institutions and determinants of adult mortality. The paper explores the relationship between the presence of domestic violence legislation and women-to-men adult mortality rates. Using panel data for about 95 economies between 1990 and 2012, the analysis finds that having domestic violence legislation leads to lower women-to-men adult mortality rates. According to conservative estimations, domestic violence legislation would have saved about 33 million women between 1990 and 2012. The negative relationship between domestic violence legislation and women-to-men adult mortality rates is robust to several checks and also confirmed using the instrumental variables approach.
Use of Imported Inputs and the Cost of Importing : Evidence from Developing Countries
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-08) Amin, Mohammad; Islam, Asif
For a representative sample of manufacturing firms in 26 countries, this paper shows that changes in the cost of importing over time are significantly and negatively correlated with changes in the percentage of firms' material inputs that are of foreign origin. Furthermore, the paper shows that there may be a nonlinear relationship between import costs and imports. These findings are important, as recent studies point toward a significant positive effect of imported inputs on productivity and growth. It is hoped that the present paper inspires more work on the determinants of the use of imported inputs, especially in developing countries.