Department Welcomes Professor Fahad Khalil as New Chair

The Department of Economics is delighted to welcome Castor Professor of Economics Fahad Khalil as the new Chair of the Department effective July 1. Professor Khalil is taking over from Castor Professor of Economics Jacques Lawarrée, whose three-year term as Chair oversaw the hiring of  nine new faculty members and a host of other accomplishments.

Dr. Khalil's experience includes a strong research background in the areas of theory of contracts, industrial organization, and economics of information, with a robust publishing record including publications in the Journal of Economics Theory, RAND Journal of Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, and American Economic Review. Most recently Dr. Khalil had his paper "Contracts Offered by a Bureaucrat" accepted in RAND Journal of Economics with co-authors Jacques Lawarrée and department alumnus Doyoung Kim (PhD 2002). 

Professor Khalil received his M.A. (1988) and Ph.D. (1991) in economics from Virginia Tech. He completed his Bachelor of Social Sciences in Economics (1985) at the University of Dhaka in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He joined the faculty at UW in 1991 as assistant professor, and has held additional visiting scholar or temporary appointments since then at Monash University (Melbourne), Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, the University of Dhaka, the University of Munich (Germany), the University of Southampton (U.K.), North-South University (Bangladesh), and the Universities of Padova (Italy) and Toulouse (France).

Professor Khalil teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate programs in the department. Recent courses taught include Game Theory with Applications to Economics, Economics of Information, Microeconomic Analysis II and III, and Contract Theory. He and assistant professor Rachel Heath recently co-hosted a conference in the department on the contemporary economic development of Bangladesh.

The Department's highest teaching honor, the Henry T. Buechel Memorial Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching, was given to Professor Khalil in 1994. He was awarded the Young Economist Prize in 1998 by the Bangladesh Economic Association, and was the invited plenary speaker at the Australasian Theory Meetings in Sydney in 2012, in addition to a variety of other recognition.