Mushfiq Mobarak, a professor in the School of Management and the Department of Economics, conducts field experiments exploring ways to induce people in developing countries to adopt technologies or behaviors that are likely to improve their welfare. He also examines the implications of scaling up development interventions that are proven effective in such trials. He is currently collaborating with Evidence Action in multiple countries to replicate, test, and scale his research program that encourages rural to urban seasonal migration to counter seasonal poverty. This program, called No Lean Season, is supported by GiveWell.org, Good Ventures and the Global Innovation Fund, and the start-up accelerator Y-Combinator. Professor Mobarak was recently awarded a 2017 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship to continue his research for this program.
Professor Mobarak’s research has been published in journals across disciplines, including Econometrica, Science, The Review of Economic Studies, the American Political Science Review, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Demography. His work has been covered by The New York Times, The Economist, Science, NPR, Wired.com, BBC, Wall Street Journal, the Times of London, and other media outlets around the world.