Prof. Matthew McCartney

Africa Urban Lab – Head of Research Programs

Professor Matthew McCartney spent twenty years as an academic at the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS), University of London (2000-2011), and at the University of Oxford (2011-21). He has been a visiting Professor at Universities in China, Pakistan, India, Japan, South Korea, Poland, and Belgium. He is a development economist by background with a teaching and research specialization in the economic development of India and Pakistan after 1947. He has published, supervised, and taught on economic issues relating to industrialization, technology, trade, the role of the state, investment and economic growth, and human development issues relating to nutrition, employment, education, poverty, and inequality. He has also worked for the World Bank, USAID, EU, and UNDP in Botswana, Georgia, Bangladesh, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Jordan, Bosnia, and Zambia.

 

He holds a BA in Economics from the University of Cambridge, an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford, and a Ph.D. in Economics from SOAS, University of London. His latest book is the outcome of two years of research-based in China and Pakistan ‘The Dragon from the Mountains: The CPEC from Kashgar to Gwadar’ and was published by Cambridge University Press in 2021.

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Publications

Malawi Failed Special Economic Zone

A Failed Special Economic Zone Experiment: Malawi 1995-2023

This policy brief critically examines the Export Processing Zones Act of 1995 in Malawi, which aimed to promote export-oriented manufacturing through Special Economic Zones (SEZs). The brief argues that the Act was fundamentally flawed, leading to the collapse of Malawi’s SEZ experiment by the mid-2000s.

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