Nathan Nunn, University of British Columbia, “Development Mismatch?: Evidence from Agricultural Projects in Pastoral Africa”
2025-11-19 12:00 - 13:15 (America/Los_Angeles) | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Nathan Nunn is a Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia and holds a Canada Research Chair in cultural economics. His research examines the historical and dynamic process of economic development, focusing on the evolution of culture, norms, and institutions across societies. He has published dozens of articles aimed at improving our understanding of the historical process of factors relevant to economic development, including distrust, gender norms, religiosity, rule-following, zero-sum thinking, honor cultures, conflict, immigration, state formation, and support for democracy. Another aspect of his research examines the importance of local cultural context for contemporary development policy.
Development Mismatch?: Evidence from Agricultural Projects in Pastoral Africa

Abstract: We study the consequences of a clash between contemporary development initiatives and traditional economic practices in Africa. Crop agriculture has expanded considerably across the continent in recent years. Much of this expansion has occurred in traditionally pastoral areas. This is believed to be a major cause of conflict between pastoral and agricultural ethnic groups. We test this hypothesis using geocoded data on agricultural development projects across Africa from 1995-2014. We find that implementing agricultural projects in traditionally pastoral areas leads to a two-fold increase in the risk of conflict. We find no equivalent effect for agricultural projects implemented in traditionally agricultural areas, nor for non-agricultural projects implemented in either location. We also find that this mechanism contributes to the spread of extremist-religious conflict in the form of jihadist attacks. The effects are muted when agricultural projects are paired with pastoral projects, which is more likely to occur when pastoral groups have more political power. Despite these effects on conflict, we find that crop agriculture projects increase nighttime luminosity in both agricultural and pastoral areas. Evidence from survey data suggest that the gains in pastoral areas are concentrated in on-pastoral households. Our results indicate that “development mismatch” – i.e., imposing projects that are misaligned with local communities – can be costly.

Philip N. Cohen, University of Maryland, "Research Is Not Enough: Public Engagement and the Citizen Scholar"
2026-01-14 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Philip N. Cohen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. His latest book, Citizen Scholar: Public Engagement for Social Scientists (Columbia University Press 2025), addresses the role of intellectuals in public life and offers guidance for a career in social science. His other research concerns demographic trends, family structure, the division of labor, health disparities, and open science.

Research Is Not Enough: Public Engagement and the Citizen Scholar
Abstract: What is the role of professional scholars in civic life? How and why should academics seek to reach audiences beyond their disciplines and institutions? Must there be tension between advancing along an academic career path and taking part in public conversations, or can these goals reinforce each other? Drawing from personal experience and in-depth research, this talk features straightforward advice that acknowledges professional risks as well as rewards. Cohen embraces the reciprocal relationship between professional scholarship and active citizenship, arguing that aligning personal and vocational identities can enhance both public and academic contributions. He explores intellectual work on social media, science communication, political activism, and how to build trust while developing a public intellectual identity (and his experience suing President Trump for blocking him on Twitter – and winning).

Michael Geruso, UT Austin, Book Talk on "After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People"
2026-01-14 18:00 - 19:15 | Royce Hall, Room 314, 10745 Dickson Ct, Los Angeles,, CA, 90095
Biography: Dr. Michael Geruso is coauthor of After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People. Geruso is an economic demographer, public economist, and associate professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin. From 2023 to 2024, he served as a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where he advised on issues of health and population. He holds bachelor’s degrees in engineering, political science, and philosophy. He earned his PhD in economics from Princeton and completed postdoctoral work at Harvard prior to joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. His work has been published in top peer-reviewed outlets including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, and Demography, and has been featured in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, the Atlantic, the Economist, and more.

After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People

Description: Most people on Earth today live in a country where birth rates already are too low to stabilize the population: fewer than two children for every two adults. In After the Spike, economists Dean Spears and Michael Geruso sound a wakeup call, explaining why global depopulation is coming, why it matters, and what to do now. It would be easy to think that fewer people would be better—better for the planet, better for the people who remain. This book invites us all to think again. Spears and Geruso investigate what depopulation would mean for the climate, for living standards, for equity, for progress, for freedom, for humanity’s general welfare. And what it would mean if, instead, people came together to share the work of caregiving, making parenting better, and stabilizing our numbers. After the Spike asks what future we should want for our planet, for our children, and for one another.

A recording of this event can be found here.

David Grusky, Stanford University, "Why is Evidence-Based Policy Still So Elusive? The Case of U.S. Homelessness Policy"
2026-02-04 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: David B. Grusky is Edward Ames Edmonds Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University. His research examines the structure of social mobility and inequality, new ways to improve the country’s infrastructure for monitoring mobility and inequality, and new policies for increasing mobility and reducing inequality.

Why is Evidence-Based Policy Still So Elusive? The Case of U.S. Homelessness Policy

In many policy zones, the available evidence suggests that locally-tailored policy would outperform one-size-fits-all policy, yet it’s difficult for local policymakers to carry out the local tailoring that’s consistent with that evidence. We use the case of homelessness policy to illustrate how this problem can be overcome across a wide range of policy domains.

Jonathan Kolstad, University of California, Berkley, "Thinking versus Doing: Cognitive capacity, decision making and medical diagnosis"
2026-02-11 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Jonathan Kolstad is a professor at the Haas School of Business, where he holds the Henry J. Kaiser Chair, and in the Economics Department at UC Berkeley. He is also a core faculty member in the Computational Precision Health Graduate Group at UC Berkeley and UCSF, the founding director of the Center for Health Care Marketplace Innovation and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research interests lie at the intersection of health economics, industrial organization and public economics. He is interested in finding new models and unique data that can account for the complexity of policy relevant markets, health care in particular. Much of his work applies tools from behavioral economics and machine learning and AI to better understand behavior and market outcomes and to design policy and technology interventions to improve welfare. Kolstad was awarded the ASHEcon Medal in 2018, given biennially to the economist age 40 or under who has made the most significant contributions to the field of health economics, the Arrow Award for the best paper in health economics in 2014 and the NIHCM Foundation Research Award in 2016 and 2018. Kolstad is also active as an entrepreneur and founder in health care and technology and an advisor to governments, corporations, and startups. He received his PhD from Harvard University and BA from Stanford University.

Thinking versus Doing: Cognitive capacity, decision making and medical diagnosis

Abstract: We study how situational fluctuations in cognitive capacity shape behavior in high-stakes, real-time decision-making. Drawing on recent advances in behavioral economics that revolve around inattention, cognition and complexity, we show that cognitive load influences how physicians in emergency departments allocate mental effort, attention, and make diagnostic and treatment decisions. We use quasi-random variation in patient-physician pairings, along with granular electronic medical record and audit-log data from many clinical interactions, to show that, under higher cognitive load, physicians substitute mental deliberation with more numerous but less precise diagnostic actions. Specifically, we document that higher load (i) increases the total number of orders of diagnostic tests, (ii) reduces the use of more precise and less common tests (iii) increases the use of common tests and (iv) increases uncertainty in diagnostic beliefs. We show that cognitive load impacts downstream inpatient admission from the emergency department: a physician in the highest cognitive load decile increases admissions by 28% relative to the same physician in the lowest cognitive load decile, for the exact same kind of patient. We also explore implications for policy, including how patient-physician matching might be improved by accounting for cognitive load profiles. These results offer novel field-based evidence on the dynamics of attention and belief formation, and shed light on how cognitive constraints shape diagnostic behavior in complex, real-world environments.

Amy Finkelstein, MIT, "Trading Goods for Lives: The Effect of NAFTA on Mortality"
2026-02-18 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Amy Finkelstein is the John & Jennie S. MacDonald Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the co-founder and co-Scientific Director of J-PAL North America, a research center at MIT that encourages and facilitates randomized evaluations of important domestic policy issues. She is also the co-Director of the Economics of Health Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research and was the founding Editor of American Economic Review: Insights.
Trading Goods for Lives: The Effect of NAFTA on Mortality
with Matthew Notowidigdo and Steven Shi
Abstract: We leverage spatial variation in exposure to the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to examine its impact on mortality and explore quantitative implications for the welfare effects of NAFTA. Areas more exposed to Mexican import competition by NAFTA experienced larger increases in mortality. In the 14 years post-NAFTA, an area with average NAFTA exposure experienced an increase in annual, age adjusted mortality of 0.68 percent (standard error = 0.19). NAFTA-induced mortality increases are particularly pronounced among working-age men, a demographic that also experienced disproportionate NAFTA-induced employment declines. Comparisons with the mortality effects of other economic contractions suggest that, unlike declines in the non-manufacturing employment-to-population (EPOP) ratio which reduce mortality, declines in manufacturing EPOP consistently increase mortality.

Developmental Seminar: Conducting Research with Vulnerable Populations
2026-02-25 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
This multidisciplinary panel will address practical and ethical issues that arise when conducting research with vulnerable populations. Panelists will include CCPR affiliates Faith Deckard, Elizabeth Kim, Randall Kuhn, and Meredith Phillips.

Patrick Ishizuka, Washington University St Louis, "The Stalled Gender Housework Revolution in the United States"
2026-03-11 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Patrick Ishizuka is a sociologist and demographer who uses quantitative and experimental methods to understand gender and socioeconomic inequality in the workplace and in family life. His recent projects examine trends in gender housework inequality, the shifting economic foundations of marriage among cohabiting couples, and parenting attitudes toward adolescents who transgress norms relating to gender expression, identity, and sexuality. His research has been published in Demography, Social Forces, and Social Science Research and has been featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Ishizuka’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Mathematica Policy Research, and Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences.

The Stalled Gender Housework Revolution in the United States
Abstract: Prior studies have documented a declining but persistent gender gap in housework since the 1960s, with women’s housework time declining more than men’s has increased. Yet gender scholars differ in their assessment of these trends and their significance for understanding the extent and pace of gendered change in families. Using individual-level longitudinal data from the 1976–2019 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this study aims to address a theoretical impasse on the status of the gender revolution by asking whether housework has become fundamentally degendered over time. Using two novel indicators of degendering, I argue that gendered identities, cultural frames, and gender performance remain far more important in determining gender housework inequality than differences in men’s and women’s observed characteristics.

Laurence Baker, Stanford University, TBD
2026-04-01 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095

Course Release and Seed Grant Talks
2026-04-15 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
“Deportation Data Project”

Seed Grant Recipient: Graeme Blair
Professor of Political Science

“Barriers to Reproductive Health Services and Their Effects on Health”

Seed Grant Recipient: Juliana Londono-Velez
Assistant Professor of Economics

“Credit Access for Responsible Extraction (CARE): Using Conditional Credit to Address Poverty and Population Health Risks in Sierra Leone’s Artisanal Mining Communities”

Seed Grant Recipient: Darin Christensen
Associate Professor of Public Policy and Political Science

“The China Syndrome Shock and Family Dynamics: Investigating Effects on Marriage Rates, Marital Sorting, and Fertility”
Course Release Recipient: Daniel Haanwinckel
Professor of Economics

Maya Rossin-Slater, Stanford University, TBD
2026-04-22 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095

Dave Kirk, University of Pennsylvania, TBD
2026-05-13 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095

Michael Lens, UCLA, "Where the Hood At? Fifty Years of Change in Black Neighborhoods"
2026-05-20 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Michael Lens is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, Chair of the Luskin Undergraduate Programs, and Associate Faculty Director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. Professor Lens’ research and teaching explore the potential of public policy to address housing market inequities that lead to negative outcomes for low-income families and communities of color. This research involves zoning and land use, segregation, housing subsidies, and eviction. Professor Lens regularly publishes this work in leading academic journals and his research has won awards from the Journal of the American Planning Association and Housing Policy Debate. His book Where the Hood At: Fifty Years of Change in Black Neighborhoods, was published in November 2024 by the Russell Sage Foundation. (Amazon) (Russell Sage – use promo code Lens for 20% off). In ongoing research, Professor Lens is using microdata to study housing mobility, whether and how accessory dwelling units are affecting housing costs, and how planning reforms in California are achieving fair housing outcomes.

Where the Hood At? Fifty Years of Change in Black Neighborhoods

Abstract: Substantial gaps exist between Black Americans and other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., most glaringly Whites, across virtually all quality-of-life indicators. Despite strong evidence that neighborhood residence affects life outcomes, we lack a comprehensive picture of Black neighborhood conditions and how they have changed over time. In Where the Hood At? urban planning and public policy scholar Michael C. Lens examines the characteristics and trajectories of Black neighborhoods across the U.S. over the fifty years since the Fair Housing Act. Hip hop music was born out of Black neighborhoods in the 1970s and has evolved alongside them. In Where the Hood At? Lens uses rap’s growth and influence across the country to frame discussions about the development and conditions of Black neighborhoods. Lens finds that social and economic improvement in Black neighborhoods since the 1970s has been slow. However, how well Black neighborhoods are doing varies substantially by region. Overall, Black neighborhoods in the South are doing well and growing quickly. Black neighborhoods in the Midwest and the Rust Belt, on the other hand, are particularly disadvantaged. The welfare of Black neighborhoods is related not only to factors within neighborhoods, such as the unemployment rate, but also to characteristics of the larger metropolitan area, such as overall income inequality. Lens finds that while gentrification is increasingly prevalent, it is growing slowly, and is not as pressing an issue as public discourse would make it seem. Instead, concentrated disadvantage is by far the most common and pressing problem in Black neighborhoods.
