Collegium Helveticum
Switzerland
fellow
Frank Schilbach
2026-2027
Home institution
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US
Country of origin (home institution)
United States
Discipline(s)
Economy and finance
Theme(s)
Behavior & Cognition
Fellowship dates
›
Biography
Frank Schilbach is an associate professor of economics and Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US). His research lies at the intersection of behavioral and development economics and examines how poverty, psychological factors, and economic behavior interact to shape people's productivity, health, and well-being.
His current work explores mental distress, sleep deprivation, financial concerns, loneliness, and substance use, as well as how people learn from others and adopt beneficial technologies. Drawing on psychology, public health, and medicine, he uses field experiments to better understand the circumstances of people experiencing poverty and to develop policies that improve their lives.
Frank earned his PhD in economics from Harvard University (US) in 2015 and joined MIT that year. His research has appeared in the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Science. Together with Gautam Rao and Heather Schofield, he helps lead the Behavioral Development Lab in India (IN).
Research Project
Mental Health and Economic Behavior Across the Life Course
Mental health, social relationships, physical health, and economic circumstances interact in complex ways. Psychological distress and social isolation may result from economic hardship, while also affecting education, employment, health, and economic opportunity.
In this project, Frank Schilbach investigates these relationships at three stages of life. The first study uses a randomized trial involving more than twenty thousand students in Colombia (CO) to examine whether a school-based mental-health intervention improves educational attainment, employment, and well-being. The second explores mental health, loneliness, and aging among low-income older adults living alone in India, focusing on whether stronger social connections produce lasting improvements in mental health and cognition. The third evaluates whether GLP-1 receptor agonists, a class of medications originally developed for weight loss, improve health, employment, mental health, and other outcomes among people with alcohol or opioid use disorders in the United States.
By bringing together economics, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and public health, and spanning adolescence, adulthood, and old age, the project seeks to identify policies that improve mental health, social connection, and economic opportunity across the life course.
Research Interests:
Mental health; social relationships; physical health; economic circumstances