California Center for Population Research

Sherry Glied, New York University Wagner School, "Who Really Pays for Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance? General Reflections and New Evidence from the ACA Dependent Coverage Mandate"
2025-01-29 12:00 - 13:15 (America/Los_Angeles) | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: Sherry Glied, an economist, is Dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. From 2010-2012, Glied served as the Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services. She served as Senior Economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in 1992-1993, under Presidents Bush and Clinton. In 2016-2017, she served on the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking. She is currently chairing New York Governor Hochul’s Commission on the Future of Health Care. Glied is a member of the Board of Directors of Geisinger, the Milbank Fund, and the Social Science Research Council. She is a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Who Really Pays for Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance? General Reflections and New Evidence from the ACA Dependent Coverage Mandate
Abstract: The incidence of employer-provided health insurance within firms is important for the design of the tax treatment of employer-based coverage and for understanding the evolving structure of the US labor market. Economic theory and empirical studies conclude that the cost of voluntary employer-sponsored health insurance falls on employees as a group. However, the distribution of overall and subsidy incidence and the mechanism through which incidence occurs have not been well-established.

This talk will provide new evidence (joint with Hansoo Ko) on incidence by examining the dependent coverage mandate in the ACA, which mandates that adult children to age 26 may remain on their parents’ policies. We confirm the overall incidence of the mandate and then consider three situations in which the benefits of this new coverage to an employee differ from the costs to an employer. I will then relate this evidence to the broader empirical literature and policy.

An audio recording of Sherry Glied’s presentation may be accessed here.
The slides of the presentation may be accessed here.

Robert Fairlie, University of California, Los Angeles, "Affirmative Action, Faculty Productivity and Caste Interactions: Evidence from Engineering Colleges in India"
2025-02-12 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: Fairlie is a Distinguished Professor at UCLA. He is an Economist and Chair of the Department of Public Policy. He is also a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He studies a wide range of topics including entrepreneurship, education, labor, racial, gender and caste inequality, information technology, immigration, health, and development. He received a Ph.D. and M.A. from Northwestern University and B.A. with honors from Stanford University, and has held full-time or visiting positions at UC Santa Cruz, Stanford University, Yale University, UC Berkeley, and Australian National University. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation, National Academies, and Russell Sage Foundation as well as numerous government agencies and foundations, and has testified in front of the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Department of Treasury, and the California State Assembly.
Affirmative Action, Faculty Productivity and Caste Interactions: Evidence from Engineering Colleges in India
Abstract: Affirmative action programs are often criticized because of concerns over lower worker productivity. In India, colleges are required to reserve 50 percent of faculty hires from lower caste groups. We collect and analyze data from Indian engineering colleges, some of which randomly assign students to classrooms. We find that reservation category faculty have lower education levels, professorial ranks and experience than general category faculty. Yet, we find no evidence that reservation category faculty provide lower quality instruction or have lower research or administrative productivity. Examining heterogeneity in instructional quality, we also find no evidence of positive reservation category “teacher-like-me” effects.

An audio recording of Robert Farilie’s presentation may be accessed here.
The slides of the presentation may be accessed here.

Sarah Brayne, Stanford University, "Living and Dying in the Shadow of Mass Incarceration"
2025-02-19 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: Sarah Brayne is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology. In her work, she uses qualitative and quantitative methods to understand whether and how data-intensive surveillance shapes individual trajectories and population-level disparities. Her first book, Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing, draws on ethnographic research within the Los Angeles Police Department to understand the social implications of law enforcement’s use of predictive analytics and new surveillance technologies.
Current projects investigate whether and how exposure to the criminal legal system shapes racial and ethnic disparities in health, aging, and mortality; how social media data is used in the criminal legal process; and role of surveillance in forced migration.
Prior to joining the faculty at Stanford, Professor Brayne taught at the University of Texas at Austin, where she co-founded the Texas Prison Education Initiative. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of British Columbia, an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University, and completed a postdoc at Microsoft Research.

Living and Dying in the Shadow of Mass Incarceration

Abstract: In the United States, racial disparities in life expectancy are well-documented. However, the role of incarceration is largely absent from this research. This gap is striking, given the disproportionate exposure to incarceration among Black men. In this talk, I use administrative and vital statistics data to understand the impact of incarceration on racial disparities in life expectancy. This research highlights the complex interplay between incarceration and health, ultimately arguing there is a critical need for analyses of data on incarceration in population research.

Eliana La Ferrara, Harvard Kennedy School, "Changing Harmful Norms through Information and Coordination: Experimental Evidence from Somalia"
2025-03-05 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: Eliana La Ferrara is Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. She received a PhD in Economics from Harvard in 1999. Prior to joining HKS, she was the Invernizzi Chair in Development Economics at Bocconi University, Milan, where she founded and directed the Laboratory for Effective Anti-poverty Policies (LEAP). She is a Past President of the Econometric Society, Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association, and International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also NBER Research Associate, Director of Development Economics at CEPR, and J-PAL Affiliate. She was president of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) in 2016-2019 and of the European Economic Association in 2018. She is the recipient of the 2020 Birgit Grodal Award. Her research focuses on Development Economics and Political Economics, particularly on the role of social factors in economic development. She has studied ethnic diversity, stereotypes, kin structure and social norms, and the effects of television on social outcomes. She has also investigated political constraints to development, with particular focus on violent conflict in Africa. Her work has been published in leading economic journals.
Changing Harmful Norms through Information and Coordination: Experimental Evidence from Somalia
Abstract: We study the role of biased beliefs and coordination failures in perpetuating the norm of female genital cutting (FGC) in Somalia, where 98% of women are cut. We experimentally evaluate three interventions to decrease the prevalence of infibulation, the most harmful type of FGC: (i) correcting misperceptions about support for the practice; (ii) public declarations of one’s willingness to abandon it; and (iii) a combination of the two. We find that on average community members overestimate others’ support for infibulation. Correcting this misperception reduces the probability of infibulation by 40% two years after the intervention. Over the same time horizon, this leads to an increase in the `intermediate’ type of FGC (Sunna). When taking into account parents’ future plans for younger, uncut daughters, the misperception treatment no longer results in higher Sunna rates, increasing instead the likelihood that parents plan not to cut. The public declaration treatment does not reduce infibulation, except in communities where participants had high priors about community support for abandoning the practice. The combined treatment yields similar but insignificant results. Our findings point to the importance of correcting biased beliefs when designing coordination interventions to eradicate harmful norms.

An audio recording of Eliana La Ferrara’s presentation may be accessed here.

Abigail Weitzman, University of Texas, Austin "Threat Evasive Migration: A Population Perspective"
2025-04-16 12:00 - 13:15
Biography: Dr. Weitzman is a sociologist and demographer whose research explores two interrelated questions: How do expectations, desires, and threats influence the timing and nature of important events in people’s lives, cumulatively shaping demographic patterns and population dynamics? And, reciprocally, how do shifting demographic circumstances influence aspirations, perceived threats, and behaviors in ways that determine individuals’ health outcomes and life trajectories? Her most recent work takes up these questions in the context of migration, considering how individuals and families navigate evolving threats and opportunities in both countries of origin and reception.

Threat Evasive Migration: A Population Perspective

Abstract: Approximately 14 million refugees and other migrants in need of international protection (MNP) live in the Western hemisphere, approximately 83% of whom reside in Latin America or the Caribbean. Demographers know surprisingly little about this population or about threat evasive migration more generally, e.g. migration undertaken to escape threats to survival. Moreover, most research on MNP is concentrated among refugees and asylum-seekers, which has allowed states’ legal categorization of migrants to dictate whose experiences we understand. Drawing on six years of fieldwork with MNP in Costa Rica, I highlight the need to move away from conventional sampling approaches; discuss network-based sampling methods as an alternative; and illustrate how broadening the lens beyond asylum-seekers provides new insights into violence-related selection processes.

Michael Mueller-Smith, University of Michigan, "The Direct and Intergenerational Effects of Criminal History-Based Safety Net Bans in the U.S."
2025-04-23 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: Mike Mueller-Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan and Faculty Associate at the Population Studies Center. His research focuses on measuring the scope and prevalence of the criminal justice system in the U.S. as well as its broadly defined impact on the population. He is the Director of the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS), a new data infrastructure project joint with the U.S. Census Bureau that seeks to collect and link extensive amounts of criminal justice microdata with social and economic data held at the Census Bureau. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University in 2015, and completed a NICHD Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Michigan’s Population Studies Center between 2015-2017.

The Direct and Intergenerational Effects of Criminal History-Based Safety Net Bans in the U.S.

Abstract:

We study the lifetime banning, as introduced by United States Public Law 104-193, of individuals convicted of felony drug offenses after August 22, 1996 from ever receiving future SNAP benefits. Using a regression discontinuity design that leverages CJARS criminal history records with federal administrative and survey data, we estimate the causal impact of safety net assistance bans, finding significant reductions in SNAP benefit take-up, which creates unintentional spillovers to spouses and children and persist long after ban revocations occurred. While we observe limited changes to other adult outcomes, children’s short- and long-run outcomes worsen, especially those impacted at young ages.

A recording of Michael Mueller-Smith’s presentation may be accessed here.

Emma Zang, Yale University, "Life-Course Exposure to State Policy Liberalism Contexts and Later-Life Cognitive Health"
2025-04-30 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: Dr. Emma Zang is an Assistant Professor of Sociology, Biostatistics, and Global Affairs at Yale University. Zang’s research interests lie at the intersection of health and aging, marriage and family, and inequality, with a particular focus on examining these dynamics in both the United States and China. She is also interested in developing and evaluating methods to model trajectories and life transitions, aiming to understand the impact of demographic and socioeconomic inequalities on individuals’ health and well-being from a life course perspective. Her work has appeared in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Demography, PNAS, JAMA Internal Medicine, and Nature Human Behavior. Her projects have been funded by the National Institute of Health. Her research has received media coverage from notable outlets in the United States, China, South Korea, India, and Singapore. She has received awards from the American Sociological Association, the National Institute on Aging, the Southern Demographic Association, and Social Science History Association, etc.

“Life-Course Exposure to State Policy Liberalism Contexts and Later-Life Cognitive Health”

Abstract: Polarization in U.S. state policy has driven geographic disparities in population health, but most studies focus on concurrent policy contexts rather than cumulative exposure over the life course. A life course perspective is crucial because individuals experience varied policy environments at different stages, shaping long-term health outcomes, including cognitive health. Using restricted-access data from the Health and Retirement Study (1998–2020) linked to state policy data (1936–2014), this study examines how life-course exposure to state policy liberalism affects later-life cognitive health. We analyze five periods—early childhood (ages 0-5), school age (6-12), adolescence (13-17), transition to adulthood (18-30), and adulthood (31-50)—and their impact on cognitive functioning and impairment risk. We test theories around timing, duration, and sequence of exposure. Findings show that prolonged exposure to liberal policies, especially in early childhood and adulthood, improves cognitive outcomes. Exposure trajectories, particularly increasing liberal policies over time, also enhance cognitive health. These findings highlight the lasting impact of public policy on cognitive health and suggest that supportive policy environments during key life stages can mitigate cognitive decline and reduce disparities.

Emma Zang’s presentation may be accessed here.

Janet Currie, Princeton University, "Investing in Children to Address the Child Mental Health Crisis"
2025-05-07 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: Janet Currie is the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University and the co-director of Princeton’s Center for Health and Wellbeing. She also co-directs the Program on Families and Children at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Currie is a pioneer in the economic analysis of child development. Her current research focuses on socioeconomic differences in health and access to health care, environmental threats to health, the important role of mental health, and the long-run impact of health problems in pregnancy and early childhood. Currie is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and of the American Academy of Art and Sciences. She will be the President of the American Economic Association in 2024 and has served as the President of the American Society of Health Economics, the Society of Labor Economics, the Eastern Economic Association, and the Western Economic Association. She is the Distinguished CES Fellow in 2023, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Society of Labor Economists, and of the Econometric Society, and has honorary degrees from the University of Lyon and the University of Zurich. She was a NOMIS Distinguished Scientist in 2019, the winner of the 2023 Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize, one of the top 10 women in Economics by the World Economic Forum in July 2015, and an Alumna of Influence by the University of Toronto in 2012. She has served on the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science, as the Editor of the Journal of Economic Literature, and on the editorial boards of many other journals.

Investing in Children to Address the Child Mental Health Crisis

Abstract: The child mental health crisis has been described as the “defining public health crisis of our time.” This article addresses three myths about the crisis: 1) The idea that the crisis is new; 2) The belief that increases in youth suicide mainly reflect deterioration in children’s underlying mental health; 3) The myth that investments in children have little impact on children’s mental health. In fact, the crisis has existed for decades, youth suicides vary asynchronously with other mental health measures and are impacted by external factors such as firearms legislation, and investments can improve child mental health and prevent suicide.

A recording of Janet Currie’s presentation may be accessed here.

Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago, "Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence"
2025-05-28 12:00 - 13:15 | 4240A Public Affairs Bldg
Biography: Jens Ludwig is the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research working group on the economics of crime, and Pritzker Director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab. He helped found the Crime Lab 16 years ago to serve as a sort of R&D partner to the public sector to help address major social problems like gun violence, and has led to nationwide efforts to change policing, community violence intervention, and social programs for youth violence prevention, as well as new data-driven decision tools in use across the entire New York City court system. This work has been published in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals and featured in national news outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NPR and PBS News Hour. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and serves on the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Law and Justice.
Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence
What if everything we understood about gun violence was wrong?
In 2007, economist Jens Ludwig moved to the South Side of Chicago to research two big questions: Why does gun violence happen, and is there anything we can do about it? Almost two decades later, the answers aren’t what he expected. Unforgiving Places is Ludwig’s revelatory portrait of gun violence in America’s most famously maligned city.
Disproving the popular narrative that shootings are the calculated acts of malicious or desperate people, Ludwig shows how most shootings actually grow out of a more fleeting source: interpersonal conflict, especially arguments. By examining why some arguments turn tragic while others don’t, Ludwig shows gun violence to be more circumstantial—and more solvable—than our traditional approaches lead us to believe.
Drawing on decades of research and Ludwig’s immersive fieldwork in Chicago, including “countless hours spent in schools, parks, playgrounds, housing developments, courtrooms, jails, police stations, police cars, and lots and lots of McDonald’ses,” Unforgiving Places is a breakthrough work at the cutting edge of behavioral economics. As Ludwig shows, progress on gun violence doesn’t require America to solve every other social problem first; it only requires that we find ways to intervene in the places and the ten-minute windows where human behaviors predictably go haywire.

A recording of Jens Ludwig’s presentation may be accessed here.

Marco Tabellini, Harvard Business School, Climate Matching in Migration: From the American Frontier to Prehistory
2025-10-22 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Marco Tabellini is an assistant professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy unit and is affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), RF Berlin, and IZA. He explores how international and internal migration reshapes politics, societies, and the economy. His work investigates when and why immigration stirs political backlash, what drives successful social integration, and how migration alters societal boundaries in diverse countries such as the United States. He also examines the economic consequences of immigration, including its effects on labor markets and growth. Finally, his research sheds light on the role of climate as a powerful force shaping migration flows across time and place.

Climate Matching in Migration: From the American Frontier to Prehistory
Abstract: We examine how climate shapes human migration across both modern history and deep prehistory. Drawing on rich U.S. census and administrative data, we show that migrants systematically sort into destinations whose climates resemble those of their origins, a pattern we term climate matching. This pattern holds for both international and internal migration, across historical (1850–1920) and modern (1970–2020) periods, and played a central role in shaping the geography of U.S. settlement, population growth, and economic activity. We then push these ideas back into prehistory, using ancient DNA to trace related individuals buried hundreds or thousands of kilometers apart. Linking these inferred migration flows to paleoclimate reconstructions reveals that even prehistoric populations tended to move along ecological corridors and into familiar climatic zones.

Stefanie DeLuca, Johns Hopkins University, “Colleges that obviously don’t have what you need”: Risk, Social Mobility and the Postsecondary Decisions of Low-Income Students”
2025-11-05 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Stefanie DeLuca is the James Coleman Professor of Social Policy and Sociology at the Johns Hopkins University, Director of the Poverty and Inequality Research Lab, and Research Principal at Opportunity Insights at Harvard University. She co-authored Coming of Age in the Other America (with Susan Clampet-Lundquist and Kathryn Edin), which was named an Outstanding Academic Title from the American Library Association and won the William F. Goode Award from the American Sociological Association. Her work has been funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Spencer Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Abell Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, National Academy of Education, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Department of Education, among others. She contributes frequently to national and local media, including The Atlantic, Baltimore Sun, The Economist, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and National Public Radio. Stefanie has been invited to share her research to support policy recommendations at the federal level at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and has provided briefings and testimony for several state legislatures and in federal court on behalf of the plaintiffs in the Baltimore Thompson v. HUD housing desegregation case. She currently serves on a Federal Research Advisory Commission at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Stefanie’s other awards and honors include the Publicly Engaged Scholar Award from the Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, Scholar of the Year by the National Alliance of Resident Services in Assisted and Affordable Housing, William T. Grant Faculty Scholars Award, Johns Hopkins University Alumni Excellence in Teaching Award, and election to the Sociological Research Association.

Colleges that obviously don’t have what you need: Risk, Social Mobility and the Postsecondary Decisions of Low-Income Students

Abstract: While postsecondary education enrollment rates have soared over the last few decades, dilemmas remain about how to support young adults as they navigate paths after high school. On the one hand, postsecondary education plays a vital role in promoting intergenerational mobility, increasing earnings, and improving job quality. On the other hand, there are large and growing gaps in college attendance, college quality, and college completion rates by family income, leaving many young adults with only ‘some college’ and a relatively unsupported and sooner-than-expected transition to work. As a policy response, selective colleges and universities have tried to increase opportunities for low-income students on their campuses, with some significantly investing in financial aid expansions and other supportive interventions. One example is an experimentally evaluated intervention at the University of Michigan (UM) called the HAIL Scholarship Study, which tests whether a personalized offer of a guaranteed four-years of financial aid can increase enrollment of students from low-income families. HAIL has been very successful, more than doubling application and enrollment at UM among Michigan students from low-income families. However, one-third of the students who received the HAIL offer never applied to UM and one-fifth of those admitted did not attend UM. How do we explain such decisions? We use qualitative interviews with 136 low-income high-achieving high school seniors from the HAIL intervention to understand how they experienced and assessed risk in the college decision-making process. We find that low-income students –even high-performing low-income students with the tuition-guarantee—worry about whether the investment in a four-year degree is worth it. In particular, we observe a profound fear of failure as students worry that they will not complete their bachelor’s degrees and/or they worry that their college education will not pay off in terms of job or financial stability. The fear of non-completion seems to stem from several sources, including: the inability to perform well academically while at a selective institution; indecision about major and finding something of interest that will lead to a solid career; being away from social support; and concerns about shocks that might occur to derail them. As a result of this risk assessment, students enact a number of mitigation strategies to get a better sense of what they want to do, many resulting in an indefinite delay of their college enrollment.

Manasi Deshpande, The University of Chicago, "Explaining the Historical Rise and Recent Decline in Social Security Disability Insurance Enrollment"
2025-11-12 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Manasi Deshpande is an associate professor of economics with tenure at the University of Chicago Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her research interests include the optimal design of social safety net programs, their interaction with labor markets, and their effects on consumption, health, and well-being. She has received the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, NSF CAREER award, and William T. Grant Scholarship. Her dissertation on the long-term effects of disability programs received the 2015 APPAM Dissertation Award, the 2015 Upjohn Institute Dissertation Award, and the 2016 NASI John Heinz Dissertation Award. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Becker-Friedman Institute.

Explaining the Historical Rise and Recent Decline in Social Security Disability Insurance Enrollment

Abstract: After substantial growth in the 1990s and 2000s, enrollment in the U.S. Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program has been declining since 2013. We use detailed administrative data to quantify the contributions of various factors to trends in SSDI enrollment, focusing especially on the decline in the 2010s. A statistical decomposition suggests that the vast majority of the decline in SSDI enrollment since 2013 is attributable to declines in application rates and, to a lesser extent, award rates, within demographic groups, rather than changes over time in demographic characteristics, eligibility, or rates of exit from SSDI. The decline in SSDI enrollment rates is disproportionately driven by older low-to-middle-skilled men with relatively severe health conditions who, over time, have become less likely to apply for SSDI and more likely to work. Consistent with this descriptive evidence, we present results from a causal analysis suggesting that improved labor market opportunities for older middle-skilled men could explain the decline in SSDI enrollment. We also present a set of causal estimates that rule out several popular hypotheses for the decline in SSDI applications, including lower award rates at the appeal level, a higher administrative burden of applying, greater generosity of other programs, and reductions in pollution and smoking.

Nathan Nunn, University of British Columbia, “Development Mismatch?: Evidence from Agricultural Projects in Pastoral Africa”
2025-11-19 12:00 - 13:15 | 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).

A recording of this event can be found here.

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.

Event Recap: Michael Geruso, economic demographer, public economist, and Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin, and co-author of After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People, delivered a compelling book talk on the global decline in birth rates. He argued that depopulation poses a serious challenge, emphasizing that larger populations have historically fueled innovation, economic growth, and our ability to solve complex global problems. Challenging the belief that smaller populations necessarily produce greater prosperity or environmental gains, Geruso calls for efforts to support those who wish to have children while safeguarding gender equity and reproductive freedom to stabilize the population. The event sparked meaningful discussion and lively dialogue among attendees.

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, Berkeley, "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
(with Matthew Notowidigdo and Steven Shi)
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.

A recording of this event can be found here.

Ann Owens, UCLA, "The Changing Relationship between School and Residential Segregation"
2026-03-04 12:00 - 13:15
Biography: Ann Owens is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research centers on the causes and consequences of social inequality, with a focus on neighborhoods, housing, education, and geographic and social mobility. Ann has particular expertise on neighborhood and school segregation, and her research also examines how housing and educational policies cause or alleviate social inequalities. Ann received her PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.

The Changing Relationship between School and Residential Segregation
Description: Residential and school segregation are key indicators of unequal opportunity and key drivers of unequal outcomes in children’s lives. Reducing segregation, then, is a promising approach for reducing racial/ethnic and economic inequality among children on a range of outcomes. A comprehensive approach to reducing segregation must account for the link between segregation in neighborhoods and segregation in schools. Historically, school segregation was seen as “downstream” of residential segregation—schools were segregated because the neighborhoods zoned to them were segregated. More recently, scholars have framed the relationship between residential and school segregation as cyclical and bidirectional, and changing demographic patterns and school choice regimes have complicated this relationship. This talk examines how closely coupled school and residential segregation are in the US, how this has changed over time, and the demographic, geographic, and policy conditions that influence the extent of their correspondence.

A recording of this event can be found here.

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, "Does the form of medical practice affect health care utilization and costs?"
2026-04-01 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Laurence Baker, Ph.D. is Professor of Health Policy and Knowles Professor of Human Biology at Stanford University. He is a health economist who uses applies economic and statistical analysis to study challenges facing the health care system. Professor Baker has published widely and served as an advisor to the public and private sectors on a range of health care system and financing issues including the effects of financial incentives and provider organizational structure on the delivery of health care and health care spending, technological change in medicine, competition in health care markets, and managed care and insurance plans. Professor Baker also serves as Associate Chair for Education in the Department of Health Policy and holds appointments as Senior Fellow of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA. Professor Baker directs the Stanford School of Medicine’s Scholarly Concentration and Medical Scholars programs. Professor Baker is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and a recipient of the ASHE Medal from the American Society of Health Economists which recognizes the top American health economist under the age of 40. He has also received the Alice S. Hersh Young Investigator Award from AcademyHealth and the National Institute for Health Care Management’s research prize. He is Past President of the American Society of Health Economists, and previously served on the board of AcademyHealth and the International Health Economics Association. Professor Baker received his Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University in 1994 and his B.A. in Economics and Mathematics from Calvin College in 1990.

Does the form of medical practice affect health care utilization and costs?

The growth of larger multispecialty physician practices prompts questions about the effects of practice organization on health care delivery, outcomes, and costs. We use Medicare claims data from 2006-2020 to examine differences in spending, health care utilization, and quality for traditional Medicare patients who receive primary care from practices that only have primary care physicians (“PC-only practices) and those who receive primary care in typically larger multispecialty practices that integrate primary care and other specialist physicians. We focus on individuals who move from one HRR to another, and use changes in practice type associated with the move to identify effects of practice type, controlling for individual and geographic characteristics, and time trends. We find that receiving primary care in a PC-only practice is associated with an increase of $341 per year in total spending. This is primarily associated with higher rates of hospitalization and post-acute care use. PC-only practices are also associated with higher rates of AHRQ Prevention Quality Indicators, suggesting a possibility of lower quality care. Overall, these results suggest that larger, multispecialty practices may be able to improve the efficiency, and lower the overall cost, of care for Medicare recipients.

Adriana Lleras-Muney, UCLA, "The Impact of Medicare’s Introduction on Life Expectancy"
2026-04-08 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Adriana Lleras-Muney is a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at UCLA. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University and was an assistant professor of economics at Princeton University before moving to UCLA. She is an associated editor for the Journal of Health Economics, and she serves on the board editors of the American Economic Review and Demography. She served as a permanent member of the Social Sciences and Population Studies Study Section at the National Institute of Health, and was an elected member of the American Economic Association Executive committee. In 2017 Lleras-Muney won the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Lleras-Muney’s research examines the relationships between socioeconomic status and health, with a particular focus on education, income and policy. Her most recent work investigates the long-term impact of government policies on children by analyzing the effects of programs like the Mother’s Pension program and the Civilian Conservation Corps, implemented during the first half of the 20th century. Her work has been published in leading journals such as the American Economic Review, Econometrica, The Review of Economic Studies and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

The Impact of Medicare’s Introduction on Life Expectancy

This paper estimates the causal effects of Medicare on mortality rates and life expectancy among the program’s early recipients. We construct a new dataset of more than 18 million individuals observed in the 1940 census linked to a death record in the FamilyTree database at FamilySearch. We use Medicare’s introduction in 1966 to identify its average treatment effects using three pre-specified approaches: a design based on a simple theoretical model of cohort mortality, an interrupted time-series design, and a staggered difference-in-differences design. All three show that Medicare increases life expectancy at age 65 for men born between 1885 and 1915 by an average of one year. Medicare’s effects on life expectancy at age 65 are larger for cohorts with more potential years of exposure but similar for groups of high and low socio-economic status. The effects for women are not robust across methods and specifications.

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
“Immigration Enforcement in the First Nine Months of the Second Trump Administration”

Seed Grant Recipient: Graeme Blair
Professor of Political Science

Biography: Graeme Blair is a professor of political science at UCLA and faculty affiliate in statistics and the California Center for Population Research. Blair is Co-Director of the Deportation Data Project. He studies state violence and how to make social science more credible, ethical, and useful. Blair’s book Research Design in the Social Sciences was published in 2023 by Princeton University Press and won the best book award from the American Political Science Association Experiments Section. Blair’s second book, Crime, Insecurity, and Community Policing, was published in 2024 by Cambridge University Press in the Studies in Comparative Politics series. His articles are published in journals including Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Journal of the American Statistical Association, and Political Analysis. Blair’s statistical software, including DeclareDesign, has been downloaded over a million times. He is the recipient of awards including the Leamer-Rosenthal Prize for Open Social Science and the Society for Political Methodology best statistical software award.

Abstract: The number of deportations from within the United States, away from the border, increased by a factor of 4.6 during the first nine months of the second Trump administration (the period for which we have detailed data). That increase reflects the following key trends: First, ICE arrests quadrupled, including both street arrests and transfers from criminal custody to ICE immigration custody. ICE street arrests (i.e. arrests not at jails) went up by over a factor of eleven. Street arrests at this order of magnitude are a new phenomenon. For both types of arrests, ICE was much less likely to target people with criminal convictions. These changes led to over a sevenfold increase in arrests of people without criminal convictions. Second, the quadrupling (4x) of arrests resulted in an even larger rise (4.6x) in deportations because of increased detention space and decreased releases. The administration roughly tripled the number of detention beds used for people arrested within the United States. That capacity increase was a result both of new funding (for new detention centers and more beds in existing detention centers) and of a decrease in arrests at the border. Once arrested, few were released. Release within 60 days of arrest, already rare in the last six months of the Biden administration (16%), became almost nonexistent (3%). The rate of deportation within two months of initial detention rose by about a quarter, from 55% to 69%; the declining release rate accounted for most of that increase. Perhaps because of the lower release rate, voluntary departures (which are rare compared to removals) increased by 21 times.

“The Consequences of Receiving—and of Being Denied—an Abortion on Women’s Physical and Mental Health”

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

Biography: Juliana Londoño-Vélez is an applied microeconomist. Her research focuses on how tax and social policies can reduce poverty and inequality and promote upward mobility in Latin America.

Abstract: This paper estimates the causal effects of being denied an abortion on women’s physical and mental health. We exploit Colombia’s tutela system, which allows women to petition judges to compel insurers and providers to deliver timely abortion care. Linking all abortion-related tutelas to comprehensive administrative health records, we leverage the random assignment of cases to judges with differing leniency in an instrumental-variables design. Abortion denial sharply reduces access to abortion services. Consistent with the importance of timely care, women who seek abortions in the second or third trimester face substantially higher medical risks—including hemorrhage, uterine perforation or damage, and septicemia—than women who seek care in the first trimester. We find no evidence that obtaining an abortion worsens women’s mental health. By contrast, abortion denial causes large and persistent increases in mental-health diagnoses and psychotropic medication use, increases physical morbidity, and leads to sustained growth in health-care utilization, including emergency department visits. Finally, abortion denial reduces subsequent contraceptive use.

“The China Syndrome Shock and Family Dynamics: Investigating Effects on Marriage Rates, Marital Sorting, and Fertility”

Course Release Recipient: Daniel Haanwinckel
Professor of Economics

Biography: Daniel Haanwinckel is an Assistant Professor of Economics at UCLA. His research primarily focuses on the determinants of wages, unemployment, underemployment, and worker-firm sorting. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2019.

Abstract TBA

Maya Rossin-Slater, Stanford University, "Birth Centers and Maternal and Infant Health"
2026-04-22 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Maya Rossin-Slater is an Associate Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic and Policy Research (SIEPR), a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a Research Affiliate at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA). She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University, and her BA in Economics and Statistics from the University of California at Berkeley. Rossin-Slater’s research includes work in health, public, and labor economics. She focuses on issues in maternal, child, and family well-being, health disparities, and public policies and other factors affecting disadvantaged populations in the United States and other developed countries. She is the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession Elaine Bennett Research Prize (awarded to recognize outstanding research in any field of economics by a woman not more than ten years beyond her PhD).

Birth Centers and Maternal and Infant Health

Abstract: The number of births at birth centers–freestanding medical facilities equipped to perform low-risk vaginal deliveries–has more than doubled over the past decade in the US. Interest in their usage increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has continued to grow since. Moreover, the large racial disparities in maternal health outcomes have prompted advocates to encourage Black women in particular to consider birth centers for their perinatal care. To date, however, there is limited evidence on the causal impacts of access to birth centers on maternal and infant health outcomes, or disparities within them. We provide novel evidence on the impact of access to birth centers on maternal and infant health outcomes. We collect new data on birth centers from several industry organizations as well as the National Plan & Provider Enumeration System of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and use nearly two decades of restricted-use individual-level birth records data from the National Vital Statistics System to study these questions. We examine the impacts of county-level access to birth centers on pregnancy, delivery, and infant health outcomes, as well as on differences in who uses them between mothers from different racial and educational groups.

Dave Kirk, University of Pennsylvania, "The Rideshare Revolution and Racial Disparities in Police Stops"
2026-05-13 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Dave Kirk is Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Criminology and Research Associate of the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago and previously served on the faculties at the University of Oxford, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Maryland. Kirk’s research agenda is primarily organized around three interrelated themes: the causes and consequences of cynicism and distrust of the police and the law, solutions to criminal recidivism, and the causes and consequences of gun violence. He is also interested in the implications of the rise of the sharing economy for crime and public safety. He currently serves as an Associate Editor of Criminology.

The Rideshare Revolution and Racial Disparities in Police Stops

Abstract: Racial disparities in police stops remain a central concern in social science research. While prior explanations emphasize differences by race in driving exposure, behavior, and vehicle characteristics as well as variation in the deployment of police and potential racial bias, one overlooked factor is the rapid expansion of ridesharing. Because ridesharing substitutes for private vehicle trips, its growth may alter the risk set of individuals exposed to discretionary traffic enforcement. This study combines administrative records of traffic stops by the Chicago Police Department, use-of-force reports, and comprehensive rideshare trip data from 2019–2024. I construct district–month panels of police stops and use of force incidents by race and estimate negative binomial models with district and month fixed effects to assess whether increases in rideshare activity are associated with differential changes in police contact across racial groups. Preliminary results suggest that increases in rideshare activity are associated with a narrowing of Black-White disparities in police stops. Use of force analyses show similar patterns. These findings suggest that rideshare expansion may narrow racial disparities in police contact and uses of force by altering the risk set of drivers exposed to traffic enforcement.

Bussarawan “Puk” Teerawichitchainan, National University of Singapore (NUS) [HOLD]
2026-05-18 14:00 - 15:15
The Southeast Asian Studies Center (CSEAS) has invited Bussarawan “Puk” Teerawichitchainan to give a talk at UCLA on Monday, May 18. Puk is a demographer at the National University of Singapore (NUS) spending this academic year at the CASBS in Stanford:

https://casbs.stanford.edu/people/bussarawan-teerawichitchainan

Her talk will be about her project on aging in Singapore and Thailand.

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.
