California Center for Population Research

Alex Bell, University of California, Los Angeles, "The Long-Term Impacts of Mentors: Evidence from Experimental and Administrative Data"
2023-12-06 12:00 - 13:15 (America/Los_Angeles) | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
Alex Bell is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the California Policy Lab at UCLA. Dr. Bell’s research seeks to document the unequal experiences of workers in the labor market and the implications of these inequalities for society as a whole. He is also interested in the intersection of labor market inequality with innovation. He often collaborates with government and non-profit partners to leverage large-scale administrative datasets that allow him to combine academic research with policy impact. Prior to joining CPL, Dr. Bell earned a PhD in Economics from Harvard University. At CPL, Dr. Bell is part of a team focused on labor and employment. In this role, he leads economic analyses and authors academic papers and policy briefs.
The Long-Term Impacts of Mentors: Evidence from Experimental and Administrative Data
Abstract:
How do mentors shape kids’ identities and later-life outcomes? To evaluate this question, we leverage program administrative records and microdata from a 1991 RCT that randomized disadvantaged children’s eligibility for a popular mentoring program. Our re-analysis of the multitude of outcomes collected by the original short-run survey suggests that kids’ behaviors improved during the time they were with mentors. A linkage to later-life administrative tax records shows that treated youth were 10 percentage points more likely to attend college and also showed positive (though less significant) effects on teen birth and marriage. RCT estimates of earnings effects are imprecise. However, using a larger dataset of program administrative records, we develop a supplementary research design comparing matched versus unmatched applicants that replicates key findings from the RCT, and also reveals significant long-term positive earnings gains from program participation on the order of 20%. Through the lens of a model in which adults of differing socioeconomic status influence kids’ decision-making, we estimate that mentors may have the potential to mitigate on the order of 2/3 of the disadvantage that ordinarily hampers low-income childrens’ socioeconomic trajectories in adulthood. Although our estimates suggest that mentoring programs will not fully equalize economic opportunities for disadvantaged youth, the program’s relatively low costs and substantial benefits may place it among the most cost-effective interventions of its type to be evaluated.
To learn more about Dr. Alex Bell, visit his department homepage here:
Alex Bell | California Policy Lab

Emily Weisburst, University of California, Los Angeles, "Immigration Enforcement and Public Safety"
2024-01-10 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
Emily Weisburst is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. Weisburst’s work focuses on topics in labor economics, including criminal justice, education and immigration. Her research interests include understanding factors that impact police decision-making and public trust in police, as well as how interactions with the criminal justice system affect individuals, families and communities. Weisburst earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin. While in graduate school, she worked as a Staff Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President and as a research associate for the RAND Corporation on joint projects with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Weisburst’s work has been funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, and the National Academy of Education, as well as by several UCLA organizations, including the UCLA Racial and Social Justice Grants Program, the Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, the Ziman Center for Real Estate, the California Center for Population Research, and the California Policy Lab.
“Immigration Enforcement and Public Safety”
Abstract:
How does immigration enforcement affect public safety? While heightened enforcement could decrease crime by incapacitating offenders, public safety could suffer if victims become less willing to report crimes. We examine the implementation of the federal Secure Communities program, which significantly increased the volume of detentions and deportations of unauthorized immigrants. Using survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau, we find that Hispanic victims are less likely to report crimes to the police and Hispanic individuals are more likely to become victims of a crime after the program’s introduction. These two opposing effects lead to a null impact on reported crimes. We provide evidence that the decline in Hispanic reporting is a key channel driving their increased victimization. Our findings underscore the importance of directly measuring victim reporting for understanding the impact of criminal justice policies.
To learn more about Professor Emily Weisburst, visit her department homepage here:
Emily Weisburst | Luskin School of Public Affairs | Public Policy

Philip Massey, University of California, Los Angeles "Social Media as a Tool for Public Health Communication"
2024-01-17 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
Dr. Philip M. Massey, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in Community Health Sciences in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. His health communication scholarship focuses on media and technology in the U.S. and globally, on topics ranging from social media, vaccine communication, health literacy, entertainment education, and ethics in social media research. His work takes a mixed-methods approach focusing on health and media literacy in the context of multiple media environments. He has examined patterns and shifts in public opinion toward HPV vaccination on Twitter and Instagram, focusing on what types of messages are shared and how content is related to reach and impact. He has also developed and tested cancer prevention messages on social media to engage parents about the HPV vaccine, leveraging the power of narrative engagement and storytelling, and more recently extended this work to alcohol recovery. His global health work has examined the impact of media effects on health knowledge and attitudes, specifically related to storytelling and narrative engagement among a West African population, utilizing digital and social media.
“Social Media as a Tool for Public Health Communication”
Abstract:
The use of social media in public health has advanced the field dramatically over the last two decades. Traditional public health methods in surveillance and outbreak investigation, approaches in health education and promotion, and strategies in policy, advocacy and community organizing have all been applied, refined, and adapted for the social media environment. This talk will focus on social media as a tool for public health communication and will cover various examples from applied research on the HPV vaccine and global health. Ethical considerations will also be discussed as guidelines when using social media for public health research must also expand alongside these increasing capabilities and uses.

Dowell Myers, University of Southern California, “Talking Demographics: Audience Reactions and Communication about Projections of Change”
2024-01-24 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
Dowell Myers is a professor of policy, planning, and demography in the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. His Ph.D. is from M.I.T. (urban planning). He has been an advisor to the Bureau of the Census and authored the widely referenced work on census analysis, Analysis with Local Census Data: Portraits of Change (Academic Press, 1992). His demographic work has included substantial emphasis on immigration, and his 2007 book Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America is widely recognized. Myers also served on the National Academy of Sciences study panel on the Economic and Fiscal Impacts of Immigration (2013-16). Research projects have focused on public narratives about immigration, aging, and taxation, projections of generational change, and the upward mobility of immigrants the longer they reside in the U.S. Most recently, he has concentrated on reasons for the mounting housing shortages that plague recent cohorts and raise the cost of living for all. This also includes public perceptions and reactions to demographic change as part of the problem analysis
“Talking Demographics: Immigration, Audience, and Narratives”
Abstract:
Demographic narratives express interpretations and conclusions drawn from quantitative analysis of demographic change. Whereas professional demographers focus on estimation of change and statistical explanation, the matter of public explanation and extraction of meaning is often left to others, traditionally journalists in the news media, but increasingly expanded to popular or political activists using social media. Reasons why professional demographers should take more responsibility and care for their public facing interpretations are demonstrated through two case examples. The first asks why it might appear from net changes that immigrants are “taking all the jobs” and “replacing” white Americans (while gross flows tell different stories). The second recounts difficulties the Census Bureau has encountered with their narratives in reports and press releases that accompany their population projections, which include racial changes and trends in future immigration. How might stronger awareness of audience and purpose lead to less misleading and more constructive demographic narratives?

Sameera Nayak, University of Maryland, Baltimore County: "Health in the Turbulent U.S. Sociopolitical Climate: Mental Health, Abortion Attitudes, & Immigration"
2024-01-31 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
Dr. Sameera S. Nayak (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Public Health at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She uses social epidemiologic and qualitative methods to investigate associations between social conditions and health inequities around the world. She has conducted research globally in the East African region as well as domestically in the U.S. Her research streams intersect around three main themes: (1) immigrant health, immigration policy, and legal status stratification, (2) political determinants of health, such as partisan polarization and abortion access, and (3) equitable health system program development and evaluation. Her cross-cutting research bridges siloed work in public health, sociology, and political science. Some of her recent projects include identifying structural and legal barriers to help-seeking for immigrants who have experienced gender-based violence, assessing the adverse health impacts of perceived political polarization, mapping state-level alignment between abortion legislation and public attitudes, and examining how the spectrum of legal statuses at the micro-level impact the well-being of non-naturalized immigrants in the U.S. Dr. Nayak earned her Ph.D. in Population Health from Northeastern University in 2022. She holds an undergraduate degree from UCLA and a master’s degree from Columbia University.
Health in the Turbulent U.S. Sociopolitical Climate: Mental Health, Abortion Attitudes, & Immigration
Abstract:
The sociopolitical landscape of the United States (U.S.), including laws, policies, and societal values, creates conditions that differentially enhance or diminish population health. This talk will describe a program of research examining how polarization and hostility shape people’s lives, health, and behaviors across multiple levels of influence and domains of health in the U.S. How do perceptions of growing polarization in American society affect the onset of health conditions such as anxiety and depressive disorders? To what extent does polarized legislation at the state level align with public attitudes toward abortion access and legality? How are immigrant domestic violence survivors’ lives shaped by an increasingly hostile political climate? To answer these questions, I draw on three observational studies that leverage data from primary surveys, focus groups, the 2020 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, and the Guttmacher Institute’s 2020 rating of state abortion policies. Results highlight the adverse mental health effects of deepening perceived political polarization, the disconnect between multifaceted public attitudes and polarized reproductive health legislation, and the detrimental individual-level impacts of dehumanizing immigration policy. Population health implications, structural interventions, and policy recommendations will be discussed.

Romain Wacziarg, University of California, Los Angeles: "Cultural Remittances and Modern Fertility"
2024-02-07 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: Romain Wacziarg is at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he holds the Hans Hufschmid Chair in Management. His research deals with a broad range of topics in political economy, including the interaction between demographic factors and long-run economic development, the links between democracy and growth, the effect of geographic and cultural barriers on the global spread of technologies and behaviors, and the measurement of cultural heterogeneity. His research was published in the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Economic Journal, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and numerous field journals. He is the Managing Editor of the Journal of the European Economic Association (JEEA). Prior to joining UCLA, he was at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He holds a PhD from Harvard University (1998)
Abstract: We argue that migrants played a significant role in the diffusion of the demographic transition from France to the rest of Europe in the late 19th century. Employing novel data on French immigration from other European regions from 1850 to 1930, we find that higher immigration to France translated into lower fertility in the region of origin after a few decades – both in cross-region regressions for various periods, and in a panel setting with region fixed-effects. These results are robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls, and across multiple specifications. We also find that immigrants who themselves became French citizens achieved lower fertility, particularly those who moved to French regions with the lowest fertility levels. We interpret these findings in terms of cultural remittances, consistent with insights from a theoretical framework where migrants act as vectors of cultural diffusion, spreading new information, social norms and preferences pertaining to modern fertility to their regions of origin.

Development workshop, 2/13 at 3pm “Scientific Accountability and Data Production”
2024-02-13 15:00 - 16:00 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
A panel discussion about open science, ethical risks, and potential drawbacks for certain forms of knowledge production with Irene Bloemraad (1), Cecilia Menjivar (2), Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld (3), and Jennifer Wagman (4)/
(1) UC Berkeley Sociology, (2) UCLA Sociology, (3) UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, (4) UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

Giovanna Merli, Duke University, "The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on network dynamics and the well-being of Chinese immigrants"
2024-02-14 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
M. Giovanna Merli is Professor of Public Policy, Sociology and Global Health at Duke University where she is also the director of the Duke Population Research Institute. Her research straddles demography, social networks and health with recent work on the evaluation of innovative network-based sampling approaches to recruit samples of rare populations of immigrants.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on network dynamics and the well-being of Chinese immigrants
Abstract:
In this talk I will illustrate the application of a novel network sampling strategy used to recruit population-representative samples of Chinese immigrants in the US and France and present findings from three studies on the heterogeneous impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of Chinese immigrants and implications for their networks dynamics. These studies are co-authored with Ted Mouw (UNC), Allison Stolte (UCI), and Isabelle Attané and Yahan Chuang (INED, France)

CANCELLED: Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago, "Machine learning as a tool for hypothesis generation"
2024-02-21 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
Jens Ludwig is Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, Pritzker Director of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab, co-director of the Education Lab, and co-director of the NBER’s working group on the economics of crime. He is on the editorial board of the American Economic Review and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
“Machine learning as a tool for hypothesis generation”
Abstract:
While hypothesis testing is a highly formalized activity, hypothesis generation remains largely informal. We propose a systematic procedure to generate novel hypotheses about human behavior, which uses the capacity of machine learning algorithms to notice patterns people might not. We illustrate the procedure with a concrete application: judge decisions about who to jail. We begin with a striking fact: The defendant’s face alone matters greatly for the judge’s jailing decision. In fact, an algorithm given only the pixels in the defendant’s mugshot accounts for up to half of the predictable variation. We develop a procedure that allows human subjects to interact with this black-box algorithm to produce hypotheses about what in the face influences judge decisions. The procedure generates hypotheses that are both interpretable and novel: They are not explained by demographics (e.g. race) or existing psychology research; nor are they already known (even if tacitly) to people or even experts. Though these results are specific, our procedure is general. It provides a way to produce novel, interpretable hypotheses from any high dimensional dataset (e.g. cell phones, satellites, online behavior, news headlines, corporate filings, and high-frequency time series). A central tenet of our paper is that hypothesis generation is in and of itself a valuable activity, and hope this encourages future work in this largely “prescientific” stage of science.

Dr. Florencia Torche “Doing Gender and the Surname Choices of Married Women”
2024-02-21 15:00 - 17:00 | 279 Haines Hall

Los Angeles' Replication Games
2024-02-28 08:45 - 16:00 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
We are looking for researchers, post-docs, and PhD students
interested in a one-day replication challenge.
Participants will be granted co-authorship on a meta-paper
combining the reproductions and replications, and will have the
opportunity to publish their work. Participants will be matched based
on field, and a study from a leading social science journal will be
assigned to each team based on interests.
The event will take place at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Virtual participants are also welcome. The event is sponsored by the
California Center for Population Research.
Interested researchers and/or teams should send their field
of study and preferred statistical software to:
ABEL BRODEUR
abrodeur@uottawa.ca
Pre-games virtual meeting slides/recording can be found here.
More information about the event can be found here

Brittany Chambers, University of California, Davis, "The Solutions are in the Community: Centering Black Women’s Voices to Advance Birth Equity"
2024-03-06 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
Dr. Brittany Chambers Butcher is a tenure track Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of California, Davis. She is a community health scientist whose program of research merges critical and public health theories to partner with Black women and birthing people to better understand, operationalize and dismantle racism. Dr. Chambers Butcher uses a community research model in her work to #listentoblackwomen to reconceptualize structural racism and the way it shows up in Black communities to contribute to adverse maternal and infant health outcomes. Building on this work, Dr. Chambers Butcher received a competitive two-year UCSF-Kaiser Permanente Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) K12 award to collect formative data to co-develop racial equity training for perinatal care providers with Black women and perinatal providers of color. She now was a K01 focused on pilot testing this racial equity training among perinatal providers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Solutions are in the Community: Centering Black Women’s Voices to Advance Birth Equity
Abstract:
Structural racism has been identified as a root cause of maternal and infant health inequities experienced by Black women and birthing people, and their children. In effort to better understand and dismantle racism, centering community voice is essential. This presentation will share a community research model used to advance birth equity and example projects implementing this model to: (1) develop a conceptual framework of structural racism from the perspectives of Black women; (2) develop and pilot test a racial equity training for perinatal care providers; and (3) developing a healing toolkit for community researchers.

Nora Daniels, Associate Director, UCLA Corporate and Foundation Relations
2024-03-13 11:00 - 12:00
Nora Daniels, Associate Director, UCLA Corporate and Foundation Relations will join our bagel hour at 11 am on March 13, 2024. Nora supports faculty across the college by identifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding private foundation prospects for funding their research, programs, and initiatives. This support includes (but is not limited to): proposal development and internal approvals (OCGA, academic leadership), RFP applications, cultivating relationships with foundation program officers, and foundation strategy development.

Conrad Miller, University of California, Berkeley, “Class Disparities and Discrimination in Traffic Stops and Searches”
2024-03-13 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
Conrad Miller is an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the Haas School of Business and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is a labor economist who studies inequality between social groups. His research pursues three broad research questions: (1) what role do firms play in producing labor market inequality between social groups? (2) what are the consequences of discrimination? and (3) what are the effects of policy responses to discrimination?
“Class Disparities and Discrimination in Traffic Stops and Searches”
Abstract: We document class disparities and discrimination in the incidence of police searches. Low-income motorists are more likely to be pursued in pretext stops and to be searched for contraband. Yet searches of low-income motorists are less likely to yield contraband. To isolate class-based discrimination, we show that motorists stopped in multiple vehicles are more likely to be searched when stopped in a vehicle that signals they are low-income. Overall contraband yield would increase if police did not engage in vehicle-based profiling. We provide suggestive evidence that lower hassle costs associated with arrests of low-income motorists help to explain trooper behavior.

F31 Predoctoral NIH Funding Panel
2024-03-14 12:00 - 13:00
Join us on Thursday, March 14 from noon- 1 pm
Please RSVP and submit questions for the panelist beforehand using this form.
Location: UCLA CCPR seminar room (4240A Public Affairs)
The panel will kick off with a brief introduction, setting the stage for a discussion about NIH funding opportunities focused specifically on predoctoral F31 grants. Attendees will gain a comprehensive overview of the funding mechanisms and application procedures, empowering them to navigate the NIH funding landscape with confidence.
Our panelists comprise both current applicants and F31 grant recipients: Andrew Hess (Econ), Eunhee Park (Community Health Science), and Esmeralda Melgoza (Community Health Sciences). They will highlight key considerations for crafting successful grant proposals, including tips for writing compelling narratives, addressing reviewer feedback, and maximizing impact. Whether you’re a seasoned researcher or new to the world of grant writing, this event promises to equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to secure NIH funding for your research endeavors.
Following the presentations, attendees will have the opportunity to participate in a dynamic Q&A session, where they can seek clarification and engage directly with our panelists. Don’t miss this chance to gain valuable insights, connect with fellow researchers, and take your NIH funding journey to the next level.
Cookies will be provided.

Rebecca Dizon-Ross, University of Chicago, "Mechanism Design for Personalized Policy: A Field Experiment Incentivizing Exercise"
2024-04-03 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
Rebecca Dizon-Ross is a development economist and applied microeconomist with an interest in human capital. Much of her current work is on the demand side, aiming to understand the determinants of households’ investments in health and education and to evaluate interventions to increase investment. Rebecca is an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Before joining Booth, Dizon-Ross was a Prize Fellow in Economics, History, and Politics at Harvard University and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University and a B.A. (summa cum laude) from Harvard University.
Mechanism Design for Personalized Policy: A Field Experiment Incentivizing Exercise
Abstract:
Personalizing policies can theoretically increase their effectiveness. However, personalization is difficult when individual types are unobservable and the preferences of policymakers and individuals are not aligned, which could cause individuals to misreport their type. Mechanism design offers a strategy to overcome this issue: offer a menu of policy choices and make it incentive-compatible for participants to choose the “right” variant. Using a field experiment that personalized incentives for exercise among 6,800 adults with diabetes and hypertension in urban India, we show that personalizing with an incentive-compatible choice menu substantially improves program performance, increasing the treatment effect of incentives on exercise by 80% without increasing program costs relative to a one-size-fits-all benchmark. Personalizing with mechanism design also performs well relative to another potential strategy for personalization: assigning policy variants based on observables.

The Digital Migrant Health Record: DR. Maria Elena Ramos Tovar
2024-04-08 13:00 - 14:00 | YRL, Room 23167
Electronic patient records (EPRs) have been shown to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare delivery. While developed countries are ahead in this transition, with nearly all hospital settings relying on EPRs, developing countries are still lagging. Without EPRs, physicians struggle to have a clear medical history of patients; consequently, healthcare quality and efficiency are compromised. This is particularly true for migrants, a subset of the population that could benefit from EPRs as cross-border mobility often entails numerous threats to the safety, integrity, and health.
This presentation will showcase the project “Right and access to health for migrants: Health care trajectories of people on the move through cities in northeastern Mexico and the Texas Valley region,” or “Migrant Health Trajectories” for short. The first intervention of the project is the creation and implementation of an EPR called “Expediente Digital Migrante” (Migrant Digital Record Home | Trayectoria de Salud Migrante). This instrument is designed to document and monitor the physical and mental health of migrants in transit; it comprises clinical history, medical notes, results of physical and clinical examinations, and depression scales. The EPR can be accessed across different countries and by multiple providers. So far, the EPR system has been implemented in 7 migrant shelters across the Mexican states of Nuevo Leon (5), Coahuila (1), and Reynosa (1), all in the Northeast region, and more than 2900 patients have been registered in the system.

Student PAA Practice Talk (Development Workshop)
2024-04-10 12:00 - 13:15
Details TBA

PAA 2024 Annual Meeting at Columbus, Ohio
2024-04-17 - 2024-04-20 | Columbus, Ohio Hyatt Regency Columbus, Hyatt Regency Columbus, Columbus, OH, United States
Details to be added later.

Andrew Penner, University of California, Irvine, "The Academic and Socioemotional Effects of Advanced Mathematics Coursetaking"
2024-04-24 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography
Andrew Penner is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Penner’s research examines how society creates categories and sorts people into them, and focuses on the consequences of these categorization processes for inequality. At UCI, Penner serves as the director of the Center for Administrative Data Analysis, and much of Penner’s ongoing research uses novel administrative data infrastructure to understand how schools do and don’t prepare students to thrive as adults.
The Academic and Socioemotional Effects of Advanced Mathematics Coursetaking
Abstract
Although existing research suggests that students benefit on a range of outcomes when they enroll in early algebra classes, policy efforts that accelerate algebra enrollment for large numbers of students often have negative effects. We explore this divergence, providing regression discontinuity evidence on the effects of early algebra placement showing that early algebra boosts subsequent math and English Language Arts (ELA) outcomes. We then investigate how early algebra might affect ELA outcomes. We find no effects of early algebra placement on social and emotional learning outcomes, and no effects on the characteristics of the ELA teachers students were exposed to. But we do find large and substantively meaningful effects of early algebra placement on students’ peer composition. This finding provides insights into why policies aimed at accelerating algebra broadly may fail, and why early algebra affects students’ achievement beyond mathematics.

Jeffrey Weaver, University of Southern California
2024-05-01 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
Jeff Weaver is an Assistant Professor in the department of economics at USC. He is an applied microeconomist working on a range of topics in development economics, political economy, and labor economics. His past work has examined topics such as public service delivery in India, the evolution of cultural institutions, and crime and low wage labor markets in the United States.
Abstract: TBA

Gabriella Conti, University of College London
2024-05-08 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: TBA
Abstract: TBA

Christopher Walters, University of California, Berkeley (STC Workshop), Title: Empirical Bayes and large-scale inference.
2024-05-15 13:00 - 16:00 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: Christopher Walters is an Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Walters joined the faculty at Berkeley after completing his PhD in economics at MIT in 2013. He is also a Research Associate in the NBER programs on education and labor studies, an IZA Research Fellow and an affiliate of JPAL-North America and MIT’s Blueprint Labs. His academic research focuses on topics in labor economics, the economics of education, and applied econometrics, including work on school choice, early childhood programs, methods for evaluating school quality, experimental measurement of labor market discrimination, causal inference, and empirical Bayes methods.
Abstract: This workshop will cover empirical Bayes methods for studying heterogeneity, estimating individual effects, and making decisions in settings with many unit-specific parameters. Examples include studies of school, teacher, and physician quality; neighborhood effects on economic mobility; firm effects on wages; employer-specific labor market discrimination; and individualized treatment effect predictions and policy recommendations. Topics will include methods for quantifying variation in effects, empirical Bayes shrinkage, connections to machine learning methods, and large-scale inference tools for multiple testing and decision-making. The lecture will be accompanied by coding examples.

Peter Hull, Brown University, "Formula Instruments" (STC Workshop)
2024-05-22 13:00 - 16:00 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography:
Peter Hull is a Professor of Economics at Brown University, a Faculty Research Fellow in the NBER Labor Studies, Education, and Health Care programs in Labor Studies, and the econometrics editor at the Review of Economics and Statistics. His research spans a variety of topics in applied econometrics, education, health care, discrimination, and criminal justice. He was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2023 in recognition of this work.
Formula Instruments
Abstract:
Many studies in economics use instruments or treatments which combine a set of exogenous shocks with other predetermined variables by a known formula. Examples include shift-share instruments, measures of social or spatial spillovers, and treatments capturing eligibility for a public policy. This workshop reviews recent econometric tools for this setting, which leverage the assignment process of the exogenous shocks and the structure of the formula for identification. Practical insights will be illustrated with two empirical applications and a coding lab.

Parag Pathak, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2024-05-29 12:00 - 13:15
Biography: Parag A. Pathak is the Class of 1922 Professor of Economics at MIT, founding co-director of the NBER Working Group on Market Design, and founder of MIT’s Blueprint Labs. His research is on education and market design. He is currently a co-editor of Econometrica and the recipient of the 2018 John Bates Clark Medal.
Abstract: TBA

Rob Mare Student Lecture 2024
2024-06-05 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
TBA

The Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science (SICSS) 2024
2024-06-24 08:00 - 2024-07-03 17:00 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
From June 24 to July 3, 2024 the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Division of Social Sciences and the California Center for Population Research will sponsor the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science, to be held at the University of California Los Angeles.
The Organizing Committee
Jennie Brand, Professor, Sociology and Statistics
Dora Costa, Professor, Economics
Patrick Heuveline, Professor, Sociology, and International Institute
Randall Kuhn, Professor, Community Health Sciences
For more information about the event go here: https://sicss.io/2024/ucla/

Welcome Back to CCPR
2024-10-02 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg

Anne Karing, University of Chicago, "Incentives and Motivation Crowd-Out: Experimental Evidence from Childhood Immunization"
2024-10-16 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: Anne Karing’s research focuses on the economics of healthcare delivery and health-seeking behaviors in low-income countries, applying insights from psychology. Her core work examines how social signaling motives can change behaviors, in ways that benefit individual health and society. She has implemented large-scale field experiments that examine the effectiveness of social signaling incentives in increasing the demand for childhood immunization and deworming treatment in Sierra Leone and Kenya. As part of this research, Anne also conducts follow-up surveys with cohorts previously exposed to incentives to assess their potential crowd-out effects on motivation. Other branches of her work include markets of medicines, including how formal and illegal markets interact, and the relevance of social preferences and competition in taming market failures among formal providers. Karing earned a BA with honors in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics as well as an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford. She completed a PhD in Economics at University of California, Berkeley and a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University.

Incentives and Motivation Crowd-Out: Experimental Evidence from Childhood Immunization

Abstract: We investigate the impact of incentives and their withdrawal on parents’ decisions to vaccinate subsequent children. We follow up with parents three years after exposure to a bracelet incentive given to children for timely vaccination in Sierra Leone. Our analysis leverages the design of an experiment in which clinics were randomly assigned to offer incentives or not. Since only parents with a newborn at the time of the experiment were eligible for the incentive, we can exploit individual variation in exposure within clinics. First, we find that eligibility for an incentive for an earlier child reduces parents’ motivation to vaccinate their subsequent child on time, with reductions of 5 to 11 percent in the number of timely visits compared to unexposed parents. There are no effects on vaccination rates by 15 months of age, suggesting that parents delay vaccination rather than abstaining altogether. Second, parents living in communities where incentives were offered but who were ineligible for them show no effects, ruling out the possibility that changes in community norms or clinic practices drive the results. Third, incentives that signaled being a caring parent do not lead to adverse effects. Using causal forest analysis and testing for differences in knowledge and practices around immunization, we rule out that negative effects are due to learning from the removal of incentives. Instead, we conclude that the exposure to incentives crowded out parents’ intrinsic motivation by altering their self-perception or relationship with vaccination.
An audio recording of Dr. Karing’s presentation may be accessed here.
The slides of the presentation may be accessed here.

Reflections on Graduate Training at CCPR/UCLA: A Panel to Honor Judith Seltzer
2024-10-23 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Join us for a panel to honor Prof. Judith Seltzer’s career and graduate training with CCPR and UCLA! Prof. Judith Seltzer is a founding member and former director of CCPR. She received the Sara McLanahan award from the Population Association of America.
Panelists include former UCLA / CCPR graduate students Esther Friedman (Research Associate Professor, Survey Research Center, University of Michigan), Charles Lau (Chief Research Officer, GeoPoll), Christine Schwartz (Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Emily Wiemers (Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and International Affairs, Syracuse University), who will be sharing reflections on their training at CCPR with Prof. Seltzer.
Professor Judith Seltzer’s remarkable body of research has studied contemporary shifts in kinship patterns in the U.S. (such as marriage, cohabitation, divorce, and non-married families), intergenerational obligations, relationships between nonresident fathers and children, and how policies affect family change. She has also contributed to improvements in the quality of survey data on families and family networks, including a module on kin networks and transfers in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, family content in the Add Health Parent Study, and most recently developing a coding scheme for the Health and Retirement Study questions on who respondents gave or received help from during the COVID-19 pandemic. Judy has also contributed enormously to the development of population research in the profession broadly and at UCLA. She has been an active member of the Population Association of America, including serving as president in 2016 and as a founding member of the California Center for Population Research (CCPR), which has shaped the scholarship and careers of multiple scholars. Judy’s students and colleagues have benefited enormously from her intellectual contributions and her tremendous generosity of spirit.
An audio recording of the panel event may be accessed here.
