Botir Kobilov

Botir Kobilov (Qobilov) is an Uzbekistani economist. According to the Uzbek Wikipedia he was born in Tashkent in 1990. He earned a bachelor's degree at the Singapore Institute of Management Development and a master's degree at Duke University in the United States.

According to Spot.uz he holds a doctorate from Harvard: he defended a dissertation at Harvard Business School on the role of information and data in financial markets and the economy, and was also a doctoral candidate in the corporate governance program at Harvard Law School. The press called him the first Uzbekistani to defend a doctorate at Harvard (May 2024), and Komil Allamjonov, head of information policy at the Presidential Administration, congratulated him on Telegram. Earlier he worked at Harvard as a research scientist in empirical law and finance.

In Uzbekistan he was a lead economist at the Central Bank of Uzbekistan, and he has written columns for Gazeta.uz and Spot on economics, higher education and venture investment. The member list of the Central Bank's Public Council gives him as a professor at Texas State University (USA).

With economist Behzod Hoshimov he co-hosts the “Uzbekonomics” podcast and is the author of the Telegram channel of the same name. In September 2023 Kun.uz reported that he attended President Shavkat Mirziyoyev's meeting with Uzbek citizens in the United States and discussed it on the podcast. Roundups of Uzbek YouTube by Afisha.uz and Gazeta.uz mention the podcast's March 2024 episode (universities inside cities, oversight of private universities and interns' pay) and November 2024 episode (the 2024 US presidential election and the candidates' economic programs).