A method for wireless communication, comprising: receiving a signal representing a punctured codeword over a wireless channel, the codeword being encoded using a polar code having a code length; identifying, in the signal, unpunctured bit-channels (315-b; 405; 515-b,c) of the codeword, wherein a number N of unpunctured bit-channels of the codeword is smaller than a number M of bits of the codeword, and wherein M-N bits of the codeword are punctured bits; identifying a set of bit locations of the polar code used for information bits for the encoding, wherein the set of bit locations is determined based at least in part on dividing a number K of the information bits into partitions allocated to first bit-channel sub-blocks (320; 510, 540) for at least one stage of polarization of the polar code, wherein the partitioning is based at least in part on a mutual information transfer function of an initial capacity C 0 = K + Δ K N of the unpunctured bit-channels of the codeword, the number N of unpunctured bit-channels, and respective numbers of delta bits for the first bit-channel sub-blocks which add up to a total number Δ K of delta bits, wherein the respective numbers of delta bits for each of the first bit-channel sub-blocks are subtracted from respective capacities of the first bit-channel sub-blocks to determine respective modified capacities of the first bit-channel sub-blocks, wherein the respective numbers of delta bits are approximated as being equal to a respective capacity backoff function, and wherein the respective capacity backoff function is a closed-form function; anc decoding the signal according to the polar code to obtain an information bit vector at the set of bit locations. receiving a signal representing a punctured codeword over a wireless channel, the codeword being encoded using a polar code having a code length; identifying, in the signal, unpunctured bit-channels (315-b; 405; 515-b,c) of the codeword, wherein a number N of unpunctured bit-channels of the codeword is smaller than a number M of bits of the codeword, and wherein M-N bits of the codeword are punctured bits; identifying a set of bit locations of the polar code used for information bits for the encoding, wherein the set of bit locations is determined based at least in part on dividing a number K of the information bits into partitions allocated to first bit-channel sub-blocks (320; 510, 540) for at least one stage of polarization of the polar code, wherein the partitioning is based at least in part on a mutual information transfer function of an initial capacity C 0 = K + Δ K N of the unpunctured bit-channels of the codeword, the number N of unpunctured bit-channels, and respective numbers of delta bits for the first bit-channel sub-blocks which add up to a total number Δ K of delta bits, wherein the respective numbers of delta bits for each of the first bit-channel sub-blocks are subtracted from respective capacities of the first bit-channel sub-blocks to determine respective modified capacities of the first bit-channel sub-blocks, wherein the respective numbers of delta bits are approximated as being equal to a respective capacity backoff function, and wherein the respective capacity backoff function is a closed-form function; anc wherein the set of bit locations is determined based at least in part on dividing a number K of the information bits into partitions allocated to first bit-channel sub-blocks (320; 510, 540) for at least one stage of polarization of the polar code, wherein the partitioning is based at least in part on a mutual information transfer function of an initial capacity C 0 = K + Δ K N of the unpunctured bit-channels of the codeword, the number N of unpunctured bit-channels, and respective numbers of delta bits for the first bit-channel sub-blocks which add up to a total number Δ K of delta bits, wherein the respective numbers of delta bits for each of the first bit-channel sub-blocks are subtracted from respective capacities of the first bit-channel sub-blocks to determine respective modified capacities of the first bit-channel sub-blocks, wherein the respective numbers of delta bits are approximated as being equal to a respective capacity backoff function, and wherein the respective capacity backoff function is a closed-form function; anc decoding the signal according to the polar code to obtain an information bit vector at the set of bit locations.