Ragui Assaad

Ragui Assaad is a professor in Business & Economics at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, serving as Professor of Planning and Public Affairs and Freeman Chair in International Economic Policy at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs. He holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University (1991), with majors in planning and systems analysis and minors in development economics and planning, as well as an M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and B.Sc. in Physics from Stanford University (1981). Assaad joined the Humphrey School in 1990 as Assistant Professor, was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 1997, and to full Professor in 2003. He has held visiting positions including Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University in Cairo (2017-2018) and Senior Visiting Scholar at the Economic Research Forum (2011-2012). From 2005 to 2008, he served as Regional Director for West Asia and North Africa at the Population Council in Cairo. Earlier roles include Principal Investigator for a construction labor market study in Egypt (1987-1989) and Project Manager at Environmental Quality International (1982-1984).

Assaad's research focuses on education, labor policy, and labor market analysis in developing countries, particularly the Middle East and North Africa, covering inequality of opportunity in education and labor markets, school-to-work transitions, employment and unemployment dynamics, family formation, informality, labor market responses to economic shocks, international migration, and forced migration effects. He has edited seminal books such as The Egyptian Labor Market in an Era of Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2015), The Tunisian Labor Market in an Era of Transition (Oxford University Press, 2018), The Jordanian Labor Market Between Fragility and Resilience (Oxford University Press, 2019), and The Egyptian Labor Market: A Focus on Gender and Economic Vulnerability (Oxford University Press, 2022). Key publications include "Socioeconomic Status and the Changing Nature of School-to-Work Transitions in Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia" (ILR Review, 2023, with Caroline Krafft and Colette Salemi), "Refugees and the Education of Host Populations: Evidence from the Syrian Inflow to Jordan" (Journal of Development Economics, 2023, with Thomas Ginn and Mohamed Saleh), and "Labour Market Dynamics and Youth Unemployment in the Middle East and North Africa: Evidence from Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia" (Labour, 2023, with Caroline Krafft). His contributions have earned awards including the University of Minnesota Award for Global Engagement (2017), Outstanding Research Award from the Minnesota Population Center (2021), induction into the Academy of Distinguished Teachers (2005), and multiple Teacher of the Year honors at the Humphrey School. Assaad is a Research Fellow at the Economic Research Forum (former board member) and IZA Institute of Labor Economics, and has consulted for the World Bank, International Labor Organization, UNICEF, and UNDP.

Professional Email: assaad@umn.edu