The American University in Cairo. Photo: Effeietsanders, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_University_in_Cairo.JPG)
The American University in Cairo. Photo: Effeietsanders, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_University_in_Cairo.JPG)
A Disequilibrium Model of Demand for Factors of Production
(Co-authored with Sherwin Rosen. The book develops and est...)
Co-authored with Sherwin Rosen. The book develops and estimates a dynamic model of investment, employment, utilization rates, and inventories in manufacturing industries.
M. Ishaq Nadiri is an American economist, educator, researcher, lecturer, and consultant who has taught at major universities and served as Jay Gould Professor of Economics at New York University. His work examines productivity, technological change, investment, econometric modeling, and economic development, while his public service has included senior economic advising and reconstruction planning in Afghanistan.
Background
M. Ishaq Nadiri was born on October 16, 1936, in Kabul, Afghanistan, to M. Alam and Gul-Nasa Nadiri. He emigrated to the United States at the age of nineteen and developed his academic career within the American research-university system.
His professional life has maintained a connection with Afghanistan. In the early twenty-first century he participated in international discussions concerning the country's political transition and reconstruction, later serving as a senior economic adviser to President Hamid Karzai and contributing to national development planning.
Education
Nadiri studied at the University of Nebraska, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree with highest distinction in 1958. The university, founded in 1869 as Nebraska's first university, had developed a broad public research and teaching mission by the time of his study.
He received a Master of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1960 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree there in 1965. Berkeley's economics program was part of a major American research university whose postwar expansion supported quantitative economics and econometric research. His doctoral work concerned the predictive and forecasting ability of econometric investment functions and was supervised by Dale W. Jorgenson.
Nadiri also undertook postgraduate study at Yale University in 1962–1963. Yale, founded in 1701, was one of the oldest American universities and maintained a strong tradition of graduate scholarship in the social sciences.
Nadiri began his academic career at the University of California, Berkeley, serving as a teaching assistant in 1960–1961 and head teaching assistant in 1961–1962. He became an assistant professor of economics at Northwestern University from 1964 to 1966 and then served as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business from 1966 to 1967. Northwestern and the University of Chicago were prominent research institutions whose economics departments were central to the development of mathematically oriented and empirically based American economics during the postwar period.
In 1967 Nadiri joined the National Bureau of Economic Research as a research fellow and became a research associate in 1969. The NBER is an American nonprofit research organization established in 1920 to conduct and disseminate quantitative economic research. During this period he also served as an associate professor at Columbia University from 1968 to 1970.
Nadiri joined New York University in 1970 as a professor of economics. He chaired the Department of Economics from 1972 to 1978 and became Jay Gould Professor of Economics in 1975. He founded and served as the first director of the C. V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, an NYU center devoted to applied economic research and policy analysis. His research addressed investment behavior, factor demand, productivity growth, technological change, research and development, telecommunications, monetary economics, and econometric modeling.
In 1993 he was a distinguished visiting professor at the American University in Cairo. He also worked as a consultant for corporations, foundations, government agencies, and international organizations, and participated in seminars associated with the National Science Foundation and the United Nations.
Nadiri contributed to Afghanistan's post-2001 reconstruction process. He participated in the Bonn talks that established the interim government, took part in the Tokyo conference on reconstruction assistance, and later served as Senior Economic Adviser to President Hamid Karzai from 2005 to 2008. In that capacity he was associated with the preparation of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy and with the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board, which coordinated the Afghan government and international partners.
He later served as chief executive officer of the Global Partnership for Afghanistan and, in 2024, founded the Nadiri Family Foundation, a charitable organization focused on rural economic development, skills-based education, employment, and health services in Afghanistan.
Nadiri developed and applied econometric approaches to investment, factor demand, productivity measurement, technological change, and economic growth across manufacturing and telecommunications industries.
He contributed to Afghanistan's post-2001 reconstruction planning through participation in the Bonn and Tokyo processes and through senior advisory work on the Afghanistan National Development Strategy.
He helped establish and direct the C. V. Starr Center for Applied Economics at New York University.
(Co-authored with Banani Nandi. The study examines product...)
1996
Views
Nadiri's professional outlook emphasizes the use of quantitative economic analysis to understand productivity, technological change, investment, and economic development. His later public work in Afghanistan connected economic research with reconstruction planning, institutional development, and the expansion of productive opportunities.
Membership
Nadiri has participated in professional, learned, civic, and humanitarian organizations in the United States and internationally. His professional affiliations include the American Economic Association, the Econometric Society, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Statistical Association.
He has also been associated with the Council on Foreign Relations, Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Sigma Alpha, Beta Gamma Sigma, the Committee to Upgrade Central Park in New York City, and the Committee to Help Afghan Refugees in the United States. These organizations represent major strands of American economic research, scientific exchange, civic engagement, academic honor societies, and humanitarian assistance.
American Economic Association
,
United States
Econometric Society
,
International
Research fellow from 1967 and research associate from 1969.
National Bureau of Economic Research
,
United States
1967 - present
International Association for Research in Income and Wealth
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International
American Association for the Advancement of Science
,
United States
American Statistical Association
,
United States
Council on Foreign Relations
,
United States
Phi Beta Kappa
,
United States
Pi Sigma Alpha
,
United States
Beta Gamma Sigma
,
United States
Member of the New York City civic committee.
Committee to Upgrade Central Park
,
United States
Committee to Help Afghan Refugees in the United States
,
United States
Founder and first director.
C. V. Starr Center for Applied Economics
,
United States
1975
Connections
Nadiri is the son of M. Alam and Gul-Nasa Nadiri. He married Tahira Homayun on September 9, 1978, and they have two children, Youssof and Khalid.
