Asim Khwaja walks us through Pakistan's current economic crisis, and why the real solutions lie in long-term productivity increases. In the process, he also tells us what he learnt from a 5th grader during his recent visit to Pakistan, and on the important role that optimism plays both at a personal and structural level.

This episode was recorded before floods started wreaking havoc across the entire country. Here is a list of Pakistan and US-based charities involved in flood relief efforts. Please donate generously.

Asim Khwaja is the Director of the Center for International Development and the Sumitomo-Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, and co-founder of the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP).

Some links to what we talked about:

• Atif Mian's and Asim's own Twitter threads on the causes of the economic crisis.
• Asim's Twitter thread about his field trip where he met the budding brain surgeon.
• Asim mentioned my research on what politicians know about citizens. Here is a blog about it and here is the full paper.
• Asim complained that I asked him about everything but his own research. Until I ask him about it in a future episode, you can read about it here.