Dr Mansur started his career as a Lecturer, Department of Economics, Dhaka University in 1976. He left for Canada for higher studies in economics in the same year. As a graduate student and research assistant, he was also offering regular economics courses at the undergraduate level at the University of Western Ontario, Canada (1978-81). Dr Mansur joined the International Monetary Fund under its Economist Program in 1981, and thereafter completed his PhD in Economics (on general equilibrium analysis) from the University of Western Ontario in 1982.
During his long career at the IMF, Dr Mansur has worked on Middle Eastern, Asian, African and Central American countries. He worked in important functional departments (Fiscal Affairs and Policy Review and Development departments) and area departments (Middle East and Central Asia and Asian departments) of the IMF. He also served as the IMF Senior Resident Representative to Pakistan during 1998-01 and as the Fiscal Advisor to the Minister of Finance, Government of Bangladesh (1989-91). During his assignment in Bangladesh, Mr Mansur was primarily involved with the successful introduction of Value Added Tax in Bangladesh in 1991. Most recently, he served as the Division Chief of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Division and was the IMF Mission Chief for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman. After taking early retirement from the IMF, with a view to establishing an institute aimed at policy analysis, in coordination with other professionals, Dr Mansur joined the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh as its founder Director and Executive Director.
Dr Mansur has published extensively in various prestigious journals (including Econometrica, Journal of Economic Theory, and IMF Staff Papers), edited books on special economic topics and in the IMF Occasional Paper and Working Paper series. His most recently edited book (with Fernando Delgado) is Stock Market Developments in the Countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, published by Palgrave Macmillan in its Finance and Capital Markets Series, November 2008.