Mazhar Waseem is a public finance economist with a special focus on taxation issues. He is an associate Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester. His research is primarily focused on Public Finance issues of emerging economies. Professor Waseem has a MSc and a Ph.D. in economics from the London School of Economics. He is interested in understanding the behavior of economic agents to tax and transfer policies with a view to learn how the design of these policies, especially in weak enforcement environments, can be improved. His recent research exploits discontinuities created by tax systems and policy reforms to study behavioral responses to taxation and their implications for optimal tax policy in low enforcement capacity settings. In addition, Professor Waseem is interested in studying how the presence of informality affects the efficiency and compliance of modern broad-based taxes – income tax and VAT – in developing countries.