Maiwand Nangyal
DPhil Candidate in Economics at the University of Oxford
Director of Research at Data for Afghanistan
Welcome! I'm Maiwand Nangyal, a DPhil Candidate in Economics at the University of Oxford, funded by the ESRC, grateful to be studying at the joint-best university in the world (tied with Cambridge in my opinion 😊).
I study how colonial institutions shaped South Asia's development, blending Development Economics, Economic History and Political Economy with modern Econometrics and Machine Learning. My current focus is the long-run legacy of British policy in western British India.
I'm supervised by Professor Stephen Broadberry and Dr Eric Chaney, and am a member of Wolfson College. Alongside this, I am the Director of Research at Data for Afghanistan, a platform which compiles high-quality data and visualisations for empirical research on Afghanistan.
Views expressed here are solely my own and do not represent any institution I'm currently affiliated with or have been affiliated with in the past.
Research
Working Papers
The Game of Thorns: Empirically Analysing the Impact of Opium Cultivation on Terrorism within Afghanistan 1994–2017
Co-authored with Dr Ahmad Zia Wahdat
Status: Under Development
DPhil Research Chapters
Chapter 1: The Fate of Koh-i-Noor: Analysing the Economic Impact of British Colonial Policies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, 1901–2023
Status: In Progress
Chapter 2: To be confirmed
Chapter 3: To be confirmed
Current Data Projects
Data for Afghanistan
Director of Research (Feb 2025 – Present): Collaborating with Dr Ahmad Zia Wahdat to compile datasets and visualisations on Afghanistan for empirical research.
Website:
dataforafghanistan.org
Presentations
Oxford Graduate Seminar in Economic and Social History, Nuffield College (November 2025)
Presented DPhil Chapter 1 research to the Economic & Social History graduate seminar at Nuffield College, receiving feedback from faculty members and graduate students across Economic and Social History and Economics.
32nd Annual Graduate Workshop, Nuffield College (April 2024)
Presented MSc dissertation research to the Economic & Social History research group at Nuffield College, with an audience including Professors Sheilagh Ogilvie and Joel Mokyr (joint 2025 Nobel laureate in Economic Sciences), and incorporated their feedback into the final dissertation.
Curriculum Vitae
Please click here for my current CV.
My full academic CV will be made available publicly when I am a Job Market Candidate.
For the full version prior to that, please contact me at
mn529@cantab.ac.uk.