Mobarak appointed Jerome Kasoff ’54 Professor of Management and Economics
Mushfiq Mobarak, who is internationally recognized for his innovative approaches to addressing poverty on a global scale, was recently appointed the Jerome Kasoff ’54 Professor of Management and Economics, effective immediately.
He is a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), in the Department of Economics, and of the Yale School of Management.
In his research, Mobarak seeks evidence-based strategies for addressing poverty at scale. Earlier this year, he was named one of the Vox Future Perfect 50, which recognizes scholars, thinkers, and organizers who actively contribute to a better future for humankind. His work has been covered by the BBC, the Economist, Foreign Policy, NBC, NPR, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and other media across South Asia, Africa, and Europe. His research is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Givewell.org, the Global Innovation Fund, and The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale. He received a Carnegie Fellowship in 2017.
Mobarak’s research is a model for how scholarship can inform the work of governments and NGOs on a global scale. He conducts field experiments exploring ways to induce people in developing countries to adopt technologies or behaviors that are likely to be welfare-improving. He also examines the complexities of scaling up development interventions that are proven effective in such trials. For example, he is scaling and testing strategies to address seasonal poverty using migration subsidies or consumption loans in Bangladesh and Nepal. He is coordinating with governments, non-governmental organizations, and the World Health Organization (WHO) to identify more cost-effective healthcare delivery methods in Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, and Jamaica. His work has been published in journals across disciplines, including Science, Nature, Econometrica, American Economic Review, the American Political Science Review, BMJ, Marketing Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Demography.
Mobarak is the founder and faculty director of the Yale Research Initiative on Innovation and Scale (Y- RISE), which brings together leading researchers in economics and political science from Yale and institutions around the globe to tackle questions related to scaling up programs that have proven effective in small-scale randomized-controlled trials. His work at Y-RISE has led to new scholarly partnerships that strengthen Yale’s standing as a global leader in developing policy interventions that advance economic well-being for people around the world.
In addition to his work with Y-RISE, Mobarak has led research initiatives through MIT’s Poverty Action Lab, Innovations for Poverty Action, and the London School of Economics’ International Growth Center. He has held external advisory roles at the World Bank, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), WHO, the Bangladesh government, the Gates Foundation, and NGOs in Bangladesh and Nepal. Locally, he and his family founded a nonprofit, based at an indoor athletic facility, that provides after-school programming for children from the greater New Haven area.
He has served on executive and advisory committees that span the university, including the Jackson School of Global Affairs, the Economic Growth Center, the Yale Climate and Energy Institute, and the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration. He teaches a core MBA class at the Yale School of Management on the interactions between business, government, and society, as well as advanced courses in economic development for graduate students in FAS’s Department of Economics.
He received a bachelor’s degree from Macalester College, and earned both a master’s degree and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park.
