Mushfiq Mobarak, Yale University

In his talk, Professor Mobarak will present recent research on seasonal poverty and internal migration. The talk will explore the gap in productivity between urban and rural areas, while also addressing how seasonal unemployment and migration affect this gap. As part of his talk, he’ll address questions such as: Why do productivity gaps exist if there are no mobility restrictions within countries? Are developing countries poor because citizens are inefficiently spatially allocated within those countries? Could you generate welfare gains by relocating people from unproductive rural areas towards thriving urban areas? 

Mushfiq Mubarak is the Jerome Kasoff ’54 Professor of Management and Economics at Yale University with concurrent appointments in the School of Management and in the Department of Economics. Professor Mobarak has several ongoing research projects in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sierra Leone. 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.