Shaan Washique Akbar

Biography

I am an M.A. Economics student at the University of Calgary focusing on labor and development economics. Before graduate study, I worked as a Research Associate on sectoral projects in Bangladesh that combined fieldwork and policy analysis. My flagship project was a study on the 2023 minimum wage in the ready-made garment (RMG) sector, which informed industry discussions and had system-wide implications for wage setting and compliance. I also contributed to projects on disability inclusion and just energy transition in the RMG supply chain through partnerships with NGOs and academic institutes. My methods background includes mixed methods and applied econometrics (survey design, FGDs/KIIs, Stata, Excel). Broadly, I’m interested in wage policy, gender and work, and the political economy of industrial transformation, with the aim of producing evidence that improves labor standards and supports inclusive growth.