Maha Rehman

I study how firms and communities adapt to shocks in environments with weak institutions and limited state capacity. My research shows that when governments cannot credibly insure against disruption, firms rationally substitute public goods with private resilience — a mechanism I term adaptive misallocation — distorting investment, slowing productivity growth, and reinforcing inequality.

I use structural models, quasi-experimental variation, and network-based field experiments, with a focus on dense South Asian economies as urban laboratories for crisis response and industrial organisation. I am currently pursuing my PhD at Cornell University.

Research · Policy Writing · Teaching

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