Bilge Erten

About me

I am an Associate Professor of Economics and International Affairs and a Faculty Scholar at the Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research at Northeastern University. My research interests lie at the intersection of gender, health, and development economics. I study how structural and institutional forces shape the well-being and empowerment of women and children, with a particular focus on violence, mental health, and economic opportunity. My recent work spans three main areas:

(a) the causes and consequences of gender-based violence across diverse settings,

(b) the design and impact of public policies and interventions that promote mental health and human capital development, and

(c) the effects of globalization, trade liberalization, and industrial policy on structural transformation, labor markets, and gender inequality.

My research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Sloan Foundation, the NBER/Gates Foundation, J-PAL Humanitarian Protection Initiative (HPI), Handelsbanken, and Riksbanken.

I am a Co-Editor of the Review of Economics of the Household and an Associate Editor of Feminist Economics. I am also a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

My work has been featured in the Financial Times, the Huffington Post, the Bloomberg View, the NPR Marketplace, the Western Producer, and the Time.

Prior to joining Northeastern faculty, I was a postdoctoral research scholar of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. I received my PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

My CV is available here and my Google Scholar page can be found here.

Email: b.erten[at]northeastern[dot]edu

Bluesky:@bilgeerten.bsky.social, X: @BilgeErten