Faculty Spotlight: Mushfiq Mobarak
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We are pleased to introduce Mushfiq Mobarak, Assistant Professor of Economics, to SOM and the PSE newsletter community. Prof. Mobarak was drawn to Yale because of the impressive tradition of development economics scholarship here. He is excited by SOM’s level of social responsibility, which is a good match with his own values.
Prior to Yale, Prof. Mobarak taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and before that worked at the IMF and the World Bank. Prof. Mobarak is currently undertaking a number of research projects centered on topics relevant to the lives of the poor in the developing world. One of Prof. Mobarak’s research interests is marital behaviors in developing countries. He is exploring why countries such as Pakistan have a very high rate of marriage between relatives. He feels that studying and understanding the factors that lead to marriage between relatives will enable the creation of appropriate policies to combat the risks associated with this behavior.
In his home country of Bangladesh, Prof. Mobarak works closely with a local non-profit, BRAC, to look at what affects people’s adoption of new technologies such as cook stoves. His research aims to parse out the factors that may increase or limit adoption: price, information levels, gender dynamics, tradition, etc. Another research project looks at migration in northwest Bangladesh where every year in the pre-harvest period there are price shocks: prices increase and labor demand decreases. Surprisingly, this does not cause migration to areas with higher wages. Prof. Mobarak’s study aims to discover the impediments to migration and how they can be attenuated. Prof. Mobarak is excited to continue his research on these topics here at Yale and hopes to be able to take students to Bangladesh where he does his research.
This semester, Prof. Mobarak is teaching an elective course at SOM entitled “Doing Business in the Developing World.†In addition, he helps to organize the Development Workshop, which is a forum at Yale for graduate students, faculty and outside speakers with research-in-progress on the economics of development. He is also leading the international experience trip to South Africa and Namibia with Professor Victor Vroom.
Click here to learn more about Prof. Mobarak’s research interests and teaching.
I interned for One Acre Fund, a startup NGO based in western Kenya. One Acre Fund, founded by Andrew Youn (Yale ‘00), provides targeted microloans to extremely poor farmers in an effort to help them pull themselves out of poverty. My responsibilities for the summer were two-fold: First, I developed a Monitoring and Evaluation system to allow the organization to measure its impact on its participant farmers. This involved researching best practices in program evaluation, developing and field-testing a baseline survey, training our local staff to administer the survey, and building a data entry business that can scale with the organization. The second half of my job was to revise the curriculum for One Acre Fund’s primary cash crop: passion fruit. Among other things, I learned how to build manure compost piles and apply fertilizer to passion fruit fields. The summer was an incredibly valuable personal and professional experience and I was enormously impressed by the organization Andrew has built.
I worked on the Africa Capital Markets Fund, a fund of funds seeking investments in PE and hedge funds that met certain development criteria: investing in sub-Saharan Africa ex South Africa; providing private capital not otherwise available to SMEs (long-term investments, new investment vehicles (mezzanine, convertible, etc)); and investing in companies with a positive developmental impact.
I worked in the Foreign Investment Advisory Services, which is part of the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank. The group advises developing countries on how to improve their business climate and promote foreign direct investment. The idea is that by increasing “bricks and mortar†investment from multinational companies, we can help developing countries to increase employment, economic growth, and global competitiveness. Over the summer I did analysis for China’s central provinces to help pick target sectors for investment promotion, and for the Western Balkans to help select target multinational companies to approach for investment. I also reviewed and reported on best practices for developing investment promotion strategies. Finally, I researched implementing a system that would allow private companies to pay taxes by mobile phone in post-conflict regions of Africa. The work was interesting, and my colleagues were an intelligent and diverse group of people. SOM has a strong and close knit alumni contingent at the IFC. It was great to get to know them.
I spent the summer working at the Grameen Foundation in Washington, DC. The Grameen Foundation is a microfinance organization working to alleviate global poverty. I worked with the Sub-Saharan Africa Division, the youngest regional division. One of Grameen’s goals for their African expansion is to encourage microfinance in rural areas. Through extensive research and interviews with several development experts, I created a strategic plan to support rural microfinance efforts as they expand in Sub-Saharan Africa. This included analyzing various risk mitigation techniques, product development, technological solutions and value chain finance.
I served as a programming and development intern at Empower New Haven. Empower New Haven is the fiduciary for HUD (Housing and Urban Development) funds disbursed into the New Haven Empowerment Zone. The organization runs programs and disburses grant money in the following areas: housing, home ownership, workforce development, ex-offender rehabilitation, youth empowerment, adult education, and non-profit organization capacity building.
I spent ten weeks in Baja California, Mexico, working for the Sonoran Institute, a U.S. conservation non-profit group. As a member of their Colorado River Delta Project, I worked with stakeholders including tourism, development, and resource officials in the Mexican government; local business owners; and community members, to design, market, and implement an ecotourism corridor. Our goal was to integrate the priorities of citizens and businesses while promoting conservation and restoration of the river and watershed. We produced a pamphlet and web site that will be rolled into the Baja California Secretary of Tourism promotions, drafted memoranda of understanding with the tourism delegate and with the owners of tourist camps that line the Hardy River (a tributary of the Colorado), and laid out plans to promote the area and engage in joint eco-friendly tourism practices. I got a real sense of the challenges and satisfaction of working closely with members of the community to find actions that answer their economic and community needs while promoting environmental conservation. The personal relationships that I built were an essential part of the work and allowed me to meet many interesting people with diverse backgrounds; I remain in contact with some of those people. Being one of two people on our staff stationed full-time in Mexico was a unique experience that taught me about working in a small office and adapting to doing business in another culture, both of which were challenging, but great fun.
On Friday, February 9th, 2007, the Yale SOM Economic Development Club hosted its 8th Annual Economic Development Conference. Attended by more than seventy-five students, alumni, and distinguished guests, this year’s conference, Trends in Economic Development, focused on community and international development.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian, SOM’86, was named President and CEO of Women’s World Banking this past September. Heading up a global non-profit organization, Ms. Iskenderian oversees its inspiring mission of supporting economic development for low-income women by providing access to finance, knowledge, and markets.