Arman Rezaee — Curriculum Vitae

Academic Positions

2026-present: Associate Professor, University of California, Davis
2016-2026: Assistant Professor, University of California, Davis

Affiliations

2023-present: Affiliate, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
2023-present: Affiliate, UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)
2018-present: Affiliate, Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA)
2018-present: Affiliate, UC Davis Data Science Initiative
2018-present: Associate Fellow, Institute of Development & Economic Alternatives (IDEAS), Pakistan

Education

PhD in economics, University of California, San Diego, 2016. Thesis: “Improving governance in fragile states through transparency: evidence from field and natural experiments”
Master in Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2009. Thesis: “Developing a New Merit-Based Scholarship Program: Understanding Student Incentives in Order to Target Post-Enrollment Outcomes for Community College Students”
Bachelor of Arts, University of California, Berkeley, with honors, 2007. Major: Rhetoric. Thesis: “The Language Surrounding Propositions 209 & 54 in California”

Publications — Peer-Reviewed

Sarojini Hirshleifer, Mustafa Naseem, Agha Ali Raza, and Arman Rezaee (forthcoming). "The spread of (mis)information: A social media experiment in Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics.
Michael Callen, Saad Gulzar, Syed Ali Hasanain, Yasir Khan, and Arman Rezaee (2025). "Personalities and Public Sector Performance: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan," Economic Development and Cultural Change.
Michael Callen, Saad Gulzar, Yasir Khan, Arman Rezaee, and Jacob Shapiro (2024). "Extending the Formal State: The Case of Pakistan’s Frontier Crimes Regulation," Economica.
Michael Callen, Saad Gulzar, Syed Ali Hasanain, Yasir Khan, and Arman Rezaee (2023). "The Political Economy of Public Sector Absence: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Public Economics.
Syed Ali Hasanain, Yasir Khan, and Arman Rezaee (2023). "No bulls: Asymmetric information in the market for artificial insemination in Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics.
Agha Ali Raza, Mustafa Naseem, Namoos Hayat Qasmi, Shan Randhawa, Fizzah Malik, Behzad Taimur, Sacha St-Onge Ahmad, Sarojini Hirshleifer, Arman Rezaee, Aditya Vashistha (2022). "Fostering Engagement of Underserved Communities with Credible Health Information on Social Media," The Web Conference (WWW 2022).
Michael Callen, Saad Gulzar, Ali Hasnain, Yasir Khan, and Arman Rezaee (2020). "Data and Policy Decisions: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan." Journal of Development Economics.
Michael Callen, Saad Gulzar, Arman Rezaee (2020). "Can Political Alignment be Costly?" Journal of Politics, 82(2), pp. 612-626.
Niall Keleher, Mary Claire Barela, Joshua Blumenstock, Cedric Festin, Matthew Podolsky, Arman Rezaee, Erin Troland, Kurtis Heimerl (2020). "Connecting Isolated Communities: Quantitative Evidence on the Adoption of Community Cellular Networks in the Philippines," Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development.
Eli Berman, Michael Callen, Clark Gibson, James D. Long, Arman Rezaee (2019). "Election Fairness and Government Legitimacy in Afghanistan." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

Publications — Books & Book Chapters

Madon T., Anderson R.J., Casaburi L., Lee K., Rezaee A., Gadgil A.J. (Eds.) (2023). An Introduction to Development Engineering. Springer.
Eskici, B., Long, J., Nair, A., Rezaee, A. (2023). "Digital Governance". In An Introduction to Development Engineering. Springer.

Working Papers

Husnain Fateh, Matthew Gibson, Fatiq Nadeem, Sanval Nasim, and Arman Rezaee. “Expectations and Adaptation to Environmental Threats.” Revise & resubmit, The Economic Journal.
Isra Imtiaz, Sanval Nasim, Shotaro Nakamura, and Arman Rezaee. “Beliefs, signal quality, and information sources: Experimental evidence on air quality in Pakistan.” Under review.

Research in Progress

Joshua Blumenstock, Niall Keleher, Arman Rezaee, and Erin Troland. "The Impact of Mobile Phones: Experimental Evidence from the Random Assignment of New Cell Towers."
Isaac Ahimbisibwe, Andy Brownback, Sarojini Hirshleifer, and Arman Rezaee. "Beliefs and the Demand for Employee Training: A Field Experiment with Small Firms in Uganda."
A. Patrick Behrer, Teevrat Garg, Raymond Guiteras, and Arman Rezaee. "Willingness to Pay for Air Purifiers in Classrooms in Lahore."
Shotaro Nakamura, Sanval Nasim, Arman Rezaee, and Farah Said. "A Smog Alert System for Lahore."

Teaching

2023: Graduate Program Advising and Mentorship Award, Office of Graduate Studies, University of California, Davis
2020: Tom Meyer Distinguished Teaching Award, Department of Economics, University of California, Davis (for undergraduate teaching)
2017-Present: Economic Development in Weak States (graduate and undergraduate) and Intermediate Microeconomics, UC Davis

Grants

Running total raised since 2016: 1.625M USD
2024: Research Grant, International Growth Center (Co-PI), Research Grant, The World Bank (Co-PI)
2023: Pilot Grant, J-PAL Learning for all Initiative (Lead-PI)
2021: Research Grant, International Growth Center (Co-PI)
2019: Grand Challenges Exploration Grant, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Co-PI)
2018: Grand Challenges Exploration Grant, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Co-PI), Research Grant, International Growth Center (Co-PI), Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Award (R21), National Institute of Health (Lead-PI), Major Research Grant, Policy Design and Evaluation Lab (PDEL) (Lead-PI)
2017: Exploratory Research Grant, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Post-Primary Education Initiative (Co-PI), Research Grant, US Agency for International Development Nethope (Co-PI)
2016: Junior Faculty Research Grant, UC Davis Institute for Social Sciences (PI), Research Grant, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Financial Inclusion Initiative (Co-PI)

Conference & Seminar Presentations

2025: Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev)
2024: Symposium on Economic Experiments in Developing Countries (SEEDEC), Advances with Field Economics (AFE) Conference
2023: Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev), Midwest International Economic Development Conference, NBER Summer Institute Environment and Energy Economics Meeting
2022: University of Arkansas, departmental seminar, MeasureDev
2021: Federal Communications Commission Research Seminar
2020: University of California, Berkeley, departmental seminar, Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev), Northeast Universities Development Consortium Conference (NEUDC), NIH mHealth Program Network Meeting
2019: World Bank GovTech Conference, University of California, Irvine, departmental seminar, University of Southern California development seminar
2018: Quality of Governance Conference at Stanford University, Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) annual meeting, Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics (SITE)
2017: USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) Evidence to Action event, The Conference on Digital Experimentation at MIT (CODE@MIT)
2016: Development Impact Lab Research Scientists Meeting, Workshop ‘Prosocial Motivation at Work,’ Erasmus School of Economics

Reviewing

Journals: Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Public Economics, Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Policy Analysis & Management, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics, Energy Journal, World Development, Economics & Politics, Industrial Relations, Journal of Politics, Industrial Organization, Poverty & Public Policy, IZA Journal of Development and Migration, PLOS ONE, Review of International Organizations, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Food Policy, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Economics of Education
Grants: ACM COMPASS (economic & policy track chair), Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI), Canada’s International Development Research Center, Campbell Collaboration, CGIAR, Development Impact Ventures, East African Social Science Translation, International Development Coordinating Group, J-Pal Learning for All Initiative, National Science Foundation, the BASIS MRR Innovation Lab, the Standing Panel on Impact Assessments