Mushfiq Mobarak

Princess’s journey and the promise of skilled migration When I first met Princess, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor of a tiny concrete room in Davao City on Mindanao island in southern Philippines, her notebook open to a page covered in neat rows ...

I met Princess and her family in Davao city in southern Philippines, and wrote about them for a newspaper in Bangladesh, with implications for migration support policies in Bangladesh

www.thedailystar.net/news/princes...

Home Call for Papers: 19th Conference on Migration and Development. Deadline Feb 8, 2026...

CALL FOR PAPERS: 19th International Conference on Migration & Development
Seoul, Korea; April 16-17, 2026
Paper Submission Deadline: Feb 8, 2026
See yrise.yale.edu for submission details.
Link to submit papers: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Check out our new VoxDevLit on International Migration! Thanks to co-editors @catiabatista.bsky.social, @econgaurav.bsky.social, @dmckenzie.bsky.social, @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social, & Caroline Theoharides!
We look to working together on this "living literature review" in the years to come...

The old view of skilled emigration as a 'brain drain' has collapsed after a generation of research.

Skilled migrants cause innovation, technology transfer, and human capital investment in the countries they leave. The best summary is @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social et al.—>

doi.org/10.1126/scie...

All are welcome to the launch talk for the new VoxDevLit on International Migration! Co-authored with @catiabatista.bsky.social, @econgaurav.bsky.social, @dmckenzie.bsky.social, @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social , Caroline Theoharides.
Wed 14 Jan, 9 am US eastern.

ECA Talk: Should We Encourage Migration Through Policy Interventions? Join this talk to discover innovative approaches and policies aimed at overcoming the challenges of living in remote rural areas.

This talk (Wed, Oct 29, 10am US ET) will be livestreamed by the World Bank. Link below.

www.worldbank.org/en/events/20...

Nice to reconnect, but I'm almost off social media. let's stay in touch by email for anything time-sensitive.

The Economics Department and Tobin Center for Economic Policy are hiring several Pre-Doctoral Fellows starting in Summer 2026.

Come join our vibrant program! Learn more and apply here: tobin.yale.edu/programs/pre...

📣 UPDATE: Discover the 🆕 Conference Program of the 18th @afd-france.bsky.social World Bank International Conference on #Migration & #Development

📅 Event held Sept. 25-26, 2025 in Paris

🤝 W/ keynote's from: Paula Gobbi, @dmckenzie.bsky.social & @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social

#EconSky #Inequality

Economic Data Helps Explain a Pattern of Violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya Minority‌ New research from Yale SOM’s Mushfiq Mobarak shows that the violence and looting in rice-growing areas is tied to rice prices, suggesting an economic motivation for the attacks, and finds that the gov...

Large sample data on patterns of violence by the Myanmar military (alongside civilians, including Buddhist monks) against their Rohingya minority suggest that there are systematic economic and expropriation motives for the forced displacement of the Rohingya.
insights.som.yale.edu/insights/eco...

An unusual academic conversation with @sebastiantt.bsky.social and @ajhollingsworth.bsky.social about the mechanics of conducting research with implementing organizations.
(Recorded in 2022, so it's a bit dated. Referee 2 wanted a lot of changes before the podcast got published)

Really excited for this week’s episode! We (@ajhollingsworth.bsky.social ) talk with ‪@mushfiq-econ.bsky.social‬ on how to work with large organizations and governments to implement research and policy.

New from David Lagakos‬, @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social and Michael Waugh:

'Welfare Effects of Subsidizing Seasonal Migration'

Migration experiments in rural Bangladesh offer a unique perspective on the potential benefits and costs of out-migration for rural individuals.

Mobarak in Financial Times: "Living in remote areas shouldn’t be a death sentence" EGC affiliate Mushfiq Mobarak authored a commentary in Financial Times on how mobile phone usage patterns can help to predict poverty and target service delivery in hard to reach places.

🗣️ @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social: "𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞"

📶 The EGC affiliate wrote in @financialtimes.com on how mobile phone usage patterns can help to predict poverty and target service delivery in hard to reach places.

📚 Read more: egc.yale.edu/news/250821/...

How internal migration is reshaping rural India Internal migration of agricultural workers in India leads to a downsizing of farms near cities and an expansion in remote areas, prompting a spatial reorganisation of agriculture whereby remote, non-m...

🆕 How internal migration is reshaping rural India

Today on VoxDev, @raamadhok.bsky.social (University of Minnesota), Frederik Noack (UBC), @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social (Yale) & Olivier Deschenes (UCSB) discuss the internal migration of agricultural workers in India: voxdev.org/topic/migrat...

Op-ed by my co-author and friend @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social in the FT today. Gift link:

www.ft.com/content/61d0...

Internal migration and spatial reorganisation of agriculture While migrants and their urban destinations are extensively studied, less is known about how their departure transforms the rural economies they leave behind. Analysing Indian data, this article shows...

🌏 While migrants and their urban destinations are extensively studied, less is known about how their departure transforms the rural economies they leave behind.

📊 In Ideas for India, @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social & coauthors dig deeper.

📚 Read the newest EGC Perspectives article:

For large-scale social benefit programs, algorithms utilizing mobile phone metadata can be a cost-effective method for identifying the poor, from Emily Aiken, Anik Ashraf, Joshua Blumenstock, @guiterasecon.bsky.social, and Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak https://www.nber.org/papers/w33919

A must-read open letter from Fields Medalists working in Switzerland.

Cutting annual budgets for education and research is always a short-sighted mistake. Even a bigger mistake now when there is a unique opportunity to attract top global talent from the US.

science-under-threat.com

Italy to issue half million non-EU work visas over next three years The move is part of a strategy to expand legal immigration channels in response to labor shortages.

This is a right-wing government with a policy on immigration that is responsive to domestic labor needs.
While other countries think about how much we can pay citizens to have babies domestically.
www.reuters.com/world/italy-...

Great Immigrants Great Americans: The Comic Series | Carnegie Corporation of New York

it's great to see @carnegiecorp.bsky.social celebrating naturalized citizens' contributions to the United States. Andrew Carnegie was himself an immigrant.
www.carnegie.org/news/article...

Migration and Development Conference in Paris. Deadline for paper submission: July 15.

RFK Jr. says US won’t donate to global vaccine effort Kennedy ripped into Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in a video address at its pledging summit.

This is a travesty & a nightmare. The US was a founder of @gavi.org. It lowers global vaccine costs, has vaccinated 1B children, & averted 19M deaths. This pull out will cost 100s of thousands of children's lives a year - and RFK Jr will be personally responsible.
www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

The first photo is from either an April hike from Corniglia to Vernazza, or a hike from Corniglia to Manarola in the Liguria region of Italy. I believe it's Manarola, but I can check when I have better Wi-Fi. But any of those villages are well worth a visit.
Second photo is from our balcony 😅

Most beautiful places in the last couple of months

📣 Call for papers - 18th International Conference on #Migration and #Development

📅 Event held September 25-26, 2025 in Paris

🤝 With keynote's from: Paula Gobbi, @dmckenzie.bsky.social & @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social

⌛ Submit by July 15, 2025

#EconSky #Poverty #Inequality #Globalization

Scalable Targeting of Social Protection: When Do Algorithms Out-Perform Surveys and Community Knowledge? Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

New @nber.org working paper with emilylaiken.github.io, sites.google.com/view/anikash..., www.jblumenstock.com and @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social:
Scalable Targeting of Social Protection: When Do Algorithms Out-Perform Surveys and Community Knowledge?
www.nber.org/papers/w33919

Mobarak et al., 2025: "Scalable Targeting of Social Protection: When Do Algorithms Out-Perform Surveys and Community Knowledge?"

📃 A new EGC Discussion Paper by @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social (@yaleeconomics.bsky.social) & coauthors examines systems for identifying recipients of benefit transfers and studies how their cost-effectiveness varies with the scale and scope of the program.

📚 Read the paper:
egc.yale.edu/research/mob...

Congratulations! (This is quite a non-standard way to share with your friends that you got married.)