Basit Zafar is the Ruebn Kempf Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan and a Research Associate at the NBER. He currently serves as a Managing Editor of the Economic Journal, and the PI of the NLSY97. Professor Zafar is an applied microeconomist whose research focuses on labor economics, the economics of education, and household finance. He has published in leading general-interest journals in economics and finance. While Professor Zafar's research employs a diverse set of empirical methods and techniques, he is primarily a survey researcher.
He received his PhD from Northwestern University in 2008 and his BSc from Caltech. Before joining the faculty at the University of Michigan, he held positions at Arizona State University and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.