California Center for Population Research

Susan Athey, Stanford University
2019-05-01 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Title: Estimating Heterogeneous Treatment Effects and Optimal Treatment Assignment Policies
Abstract: This talk will review recently developed methods for estimating conditional average treatment effects and optimal treatment assignment policies in experimental and observational studies, including settings with unconfoundedness or instrumental variables. Multi-armed bandits for learning treatment assignment policies will also be considered.
Co-sponsored with the Center for Social Statistics
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Brandon Stewart, Princeton University
2019-05-08 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Title: How to Make Causal Inferences Using Texts
Abstract: Texts are increasingly used to make causal inferences: either with the document serving as the treatment or the outcome. We introduce a new conceptual framework to understand all text-based causal inferences, demonstrate fundamental problems that arise when using manual or computational approaches applied to text for causal inference, and provide solutions to the problems we raise. We demonstrate that all text-based causal inferences depend upon a latent representation of the text and we provide a framework to learn the latent representation.
Estimating this latent representation, however, creates new risks: we may unintentionally create a dependency across observations or create opportunities to fish for large effects. To address these risks, we introduce a train/test split framework and apply it to estimate causal effects from an experiment on immigration attitudes and a study on bureaucratic responsiveness. Our work provides a rigorous foundation for text-based causal inferences, connecting two previously disparate literatures. (Joint Work with Egami, Fong, Grimmer and Roberts)
Co-sponsored with the Center for Social Statistics
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Tomas Jimenez, Stanford University
2019-05-15 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Title: The Other Side of Assimilation: How Immigrants are Changing American Life
Abstract: The immigration patterns of the last three decades have profoundly changed nearly every aspect of life in the United States. What do those changes mean for the most established Americans—those whose families have been in the country for multiple generations? The Other Side of Assimilation shows that assimilation is not a one-way street. Jiménez explains how established Americans undergo their own assimilation in response to profound immigration-driven ethnic, racial, political, economic, and cultural shifts.
Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of International Migration and the Race and Ethnicity Sociology Working Group
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Pascaline Dupas, Stanford University
2019-05-23 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Title: The Incidence of Public Subsidies to Private Hospitals under Weak Governance: Evidence from India (joint with Radhika Jain)
Abstract: Expanding public health insurance and enlisting private agents for service delivery are common policy strategies to meet the goals of universal health coverage, but there is limited evidence from developing countries to inform their design. This paper, joint with Radhika Jain from Harvard School of Public Health, provides quantitative evidence on how insurance design affects program performance and incidence in the context of a government-funded health insurance program that aims to provide free care to 46 million people in Rajasthan, India. We exploit a policy-induced natural experiment, and use administrative claims linked to patient surveys, to provide the first large-scale evidence of private hospital behavior under public health insurance.
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Second Annual Robert Mare Student Lectureship: Carolina Arteaga, PhD (c) Economics, UCLA
2019-06-05 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Title: Essays in Education and Crime in Colombia
Abstract: This dissertation contains three essays in applied microeconomics. In the first chapter paper I test whether the return to college education is the result of human capital accumulation or instead reflects the fact that attending college signals higher ability to employers. The second chapter provides evidence that parental incarceration increases children’s educational attainment. Finally, in the third chapter I derive a new expression that extends the Local Average Treatment Effect concept, to a setting with two sources of unobserved treatment heterogeneity.

Summer Institute in Computational Social Science
2019-06-17 - 2019-06-28 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
The purpose of the Summer Institute is to bring together graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and early career faculty interested in computational social science. The Summer Institute is open to both social scientists (broadly conceived) and data scientists (broadly conceived).

Summer Institute in Computational Social Science Panel Presentation
2019-06-21 14:00 - 18:00 | Luskin Conference Center Laureate Room
Summer Institute in Computational Social Science Panel Presentation
Luskin Conference Center Laureate Room

2:00pm – 3:15pm Digital Demography

Prof. Dennis Feehan, UC Berkeley and Prof. Ka-Yuet Liu, UCLA

3:30pm – 4:45pm Computational Causal Inference

Prof. Judea Pearl, UCLA and Prof. Sam Pimentel, UC Berkeley
Reception 5:00pm – 6:00pm

Big Data for Big Social Issues
2019-08-01 13:00 - 18:00 | UCLA Neuroscience Research Building Auditorium (NRB 132)
Big Data for Big Social Issues
Summer Institute in Computational Social Science Panel: 1:00pm – 2:45pm
Prof. John Friedman, Brown University: “Income Inequality and Social Mobility: What Can We Learn from Big Data?” 3:00pm-5:00pm
Reception 5:00-6:00pm
Click here to view a recording of the talk
A defining feature of the American Dream is upward income mobility — the ideal that children have equal opportunities to succeed in life, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. Prof. Friedman will discuss his research using large administrative datasets to uncover where opportunity lacks in America, and what policymakers and civic leaders can do about it to revive the American Dream for future generations.

Welcome and Introductions
2019-10-02 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Please come join us to learn all about the California Center for Population Research!
This will be the kick-off event for the start of the upcoming 2019-2020 CCPR Seminar Series.

Jonathan Daw, Penn State University
2019-10-09 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Title: Renal Relationships: Understanding Living Kidney Donor Relationship Patterns
Abstract: Who do we turn to in times of need? Traditionally, social support research has shown a strong preference to rely on strong ties in these scenarios – often, even when weak ties might be better positioned to help. However, this conclusion has recently been challenged by Small (2017), who argues that people often rely on weak ties for emotional support in stressful times, preferring to avoid more complicated strong ties. This suggests that the types of ties we activate in times of need varies by the situation. In this study, we apply this framework to the study of living donor kidney transplantation (LDKT), effectively asking: How does this behavior differ when the stakes are potentially life and death? Using a variety of primary and secondary datasets, we compare the distribution of LDKT ties to the distribution of ties who would be likely able to help, then seek to explain these relative utilization patterns as a function of medical fundamentals, social/spatial relationships, and qualitative reasoning invoked by survey respondents. Our preliminary findings show that LDKT patterns are primarily driven by social relationship quality, and far less by medical fundamentals such as the potential donors’ health or genetic relationship to the patient.
Video
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Adriana Lleras-Muney, UC Los Angeles
2019-10-16 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Title:”Can Labor Market Discrimination Explain Racial Disparities in Schooling? Evidence from WWII”
Abstract: Can the racial gap in labor market earnings explain black-white disparities in the schooling of the next generation? To answer this, we exploit the large increase in labor demand in markets that received WWII defense industry contracts. This increase in labor demand combined with a policy that prohibited discrimination by race and ethnicity in the defense industries resulted in significant increases in African American earnings and declines in the racial gap in earnings between 1940 and 1950. This was achieved largely via occupational upgrading among African Americans into semi-skilled professions. In contrast with women, whose progress in the labor market was largely reversed in short order, this occupational upgrading persisted for African Americans. We argue that this persistence is consistent with declines in statistical discrimination. Moreover, we find that in these same labor markets, the next generation of African Americans invested relatively more in their human capital, as measured by greater years of schooling and a decline in the black-white schooling gap. We explore three reasons why reductions in the black white earnings gap might lead to reductions in the black white schooling gap of the next generation. First, this would relax the financial constraint faced by many African American families, allowing their children to remain in school longer. Second, occupational upgrading might have increased the returns to human capital among African Americans. Finally, there may be political responses that result in changes in public funding and provision of schooling and other public goods that affect the human capital accumulation of the next generation of African Americans. We find evidence consistent with the first explanation only. We conclude that efforts to further reduce the racial gap in schooling might consider labor market interventions

Michelle Jackson, Stanford University
2019-10-23 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Title: A Century of Educational Inequality in the United States
Abstract: The “income inequality hypothesis” holds that rising income inequality affects the distribution of a wide range of social and economic outcomes. Research highlighting the sharp increase in educational inequality in recent decades has fuelled concerns that rising income inequality has had damaging consequences for equality of educational opportunity, even while other researchers have provided descriptive evidence at odds with the income inequality hypothesis. In this paper we track long-term trends in family income inequalities in college enrollment (“enrollment inequality”) using all available nationally representative datasets for cohorts born between 1908 and 1995. We show that the trend in enrollment inequality moved in lockstep with the trend in income inequality over the past century. There is one exception to this general finding: for cohorts at risk of serving in the Vietnam War, enrollment inequality was high while income inequality was low. During this period, enrollment inequality was significantly higher for men than for women. Aside from this singular confounding event, evidence on a century of enrollment inequality establishes a strong association between income inequality and enrollment inequality, providing support for the view that rising income inequality is fundamentally changing the distribution of life chances.
Co-sponsored with the Social Stratification, Inequality and Mobility Working Group
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Stefan Wager, Stanford University
2019-10-30 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Title: Machine Learning for Causal Inference
Abstract: Given advances in machine learning over the past decades, it is now possible to accurately solve difficult non-parametric prediction problems in a way that is routine and reproducible. In this talk, I’ll discuss how these machine learning tools can be rigorously integrated into observational study analyses, and how they interact with classical ideas around randomization, semiparametric modeling, double robustness, etc. When deployed carefully, machine learning enables us to develop statistical estimators that reflect the study design more closely than basic linear regression based methods.

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Courtney Cogburn, Columbia University
2019-11-13 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Title: Race, Culture and Health: Conceptual and Methodological Innovations
Abstract: Building a culture of health and achieving health equity requires that we engage cultural processes in a more meaningful way. Cultural processes and systems are commonly referenced in health inequity scholarship but empirical research generally lags behind this conceptual emphasis. I argue that employing a transdisciplinary approach to examining intersections of culture, structure and racism is a valuable analytical tool for understanding the production of social and racial inequities in health. In this talk, I’ll discuss conceptual work advancing the concept of “cultural racism” in relation to racial inequities in health and will also provide an overview of related empirical projects: 1) a laboratory experiment examining the effects of media-based racism on physiological, psychological and behavioral stress responses, 2) a data science project exploring ways to assess chronic exposure to media-based racism and possible links to population health and 3) the use of virtual reality to promote structural competence regarding the structural and cultural roots of racism. In lieu of a deep dive on a single project or paper, the presentation seeks to support a rich conversation about the need for conceptual and methodological innovation in service of better understanding and addressing racial inequities in health.
More on Prof. Cogburn

CEGA-EASST & BRAC Fellow Seminar
2019-11-14 12:30 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
The Luskin School of Public Affairs and the California Center for Population Research invites you for a Lunch Seminar with CEGA-EASST & BRAC Fellows next Thursday, November 14 from 12:30-1:30 pm in the CCPR Seminar Room. Lunch will be served, please RSVP here.
Ronald Mulebeke (EASST fellow), Research Fellow at Makerere School of Public Health
“Impact of Supportive Supervision and Behavior Change Communication to improve the quality of malaria care and data management in Uganda”
In Uganda, malaria contributes between 30 and 50% of outpatient visits, 15–20% of hospital admissions and 20% of hospital deaths, with most of this burden borne by children under 5 years and pregnant women. Most of these are seen in the private sector where approximately 60% of the population seek for malaria care at first need. There is growing evidence that supportive supervision (SS) is a sustainable intervention to achieve higher adherence to guidelines and overall improvement of quality of care. In this study, I propose a cluster randomized controlled trial to test the hypothesis that SS provided to private health facilities in combination with behavioral change communication (BCC) provided to the community improves the quality of malaria care. I will also determine the quality of data management as well as determine the cost-effectiveness of the intervention which will turn out to have an impact on quality of malaria care
Christina Fille (EASST fellow), Lecturer at the Institute of Social Work in Tanzania
“The Impact of Secondary School Certificate on Income, Teen Pregnancy and Cognitive Performance in Tanzania”
Students in Tanzania go through secondary school education which is four years and at the end they complete a national examination which is called the Certificate of Secondary Education Examination (CSEE). CSEE is an achievement test offered to candidates who have completed four years of secondary education. The objectives of this examination are to assess students’ skills and knowledge achieved in different subjects at secondary school and measure the extent to which the student can use the skills gained to meet the social, political, economic and technological challenges for the individual and the national development at large. This study will investigate if passing this examination and getting a certificate increases individual’s income in the sense of providing the individuals with formal employment versus low skill self-employment, if it improves the fertility and health outcomes of the individuals, and also if it improves the skills, knowledge and experience possessed by an individual. This study is going to react by investigate if passing the examination and getting a certificate is a signal in the labour market or do these candidates really possess the skills. Therefore, this will be a signaling versus skills debate paper using the Regression Discontinuity Design.
Esau Tugume (BRAC fellow), Research Associate at BRAC Uganda
“Effects of Vocational Education Training on labour productivity: an RCT in Northern Uganda”
Private sector in Uganda is largely affected by poor productivity resulting from poor managerial practices, low technology adoption, limited productive labour supply and finances to fund firm mechanization. The enrolment of students into vocational training programs to provide the productive labour has always been low recorded at 63,265 in 2016 and the quality of skills acquired has been insufficient to match the job market requirement. Ugandan government started implementing the “Skilling Uganda strategic plan” in 2011 that aimed to improve on supply of employable skills, competencies relevant in the labour market and overcome unproductive labour force achieve increase in productivity and growth in economy. Despite these efforts, unproductive and poor skilled labour force still exist in skill intensive sectors like carpentry, metal fabrication and grain milling, where technical skills are essential to increase firm productivity (Danish Report, 2016). This study proposes a randomized control trial experiment to enrol one group of trainees into vocational education training and the control group will attend firm training for six months respectively. The effect of the treatment on trainee productivity will be measured by time taken to complete a two panel door of particular quality.

René D. Flores, The University of Chicago
2019-11-20 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Title: Diversity, Immigration, and Public Opinion in the U.S.
Abstract: What factors animate public opinion towards immigrants? A substantial literature has tested the impact of individual objective traits like education and job market status on immigration attitudes. In addition, researchers have explored the role of subjective factors like immigrants’ perceived impact on society. However, prior quantitative research has generally overlooked a key aspect: natives’ impressions of who immigrants are. Immigrants in the U.S. are increasingly diverse and evidence suggests that natives prefer certain types of immigrants. Yet, survey questions gauging immigration attitudes often refer to “immigrants” as if they were a single, homogenous group, which makes it hard to interpret survey takers’ answers. To fill this gap, we explore heterogeneity in subjective perceptions of immigrants and assess their attitudinal impacts. We systematically uncover these perceptions by using a Latent Class Analysis approach on a new set of survey items we developed. We find the presence of four different immigrant “archetypes” or multidimensional constellations of immigrant traits. These archetypes are shared across regions, social classes, and partisan lines and more powerfully predict immigration attitudes than typical independent variables used in extant research. Last, we discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of our findings.
More on Prof. Flores

Emily Smith-Greenway, USC
2019-12-04 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Title: Life after death: The scale and salience of mortality in sub-Saharan Africa
Abstract: Dramatic reductions in the infant and under-five mortality rates over the last half century are among the global health community’s most notable achievements. The trends are clear and the message is positive: the world today is healthier and safer for young people than it has ever been. Sub-Saharan African countries, in particular, have experienced some of the most dramatic reductions in early life mortality. However, the all-time low infant and under-five mortality rates conceal the pervasiveness by which contemporary populations experience the phenomenon of having an infant or under-five-year-old child die—a life event that can leave parents vulnerable in myriad ways. In this talk I will introduce new population measures that capture the scale at which infant and child deaths are experienced by and dispersed across mothers in contemporary African populations. I will then demonstrate the disadvantage mothers can experience following a child’s death, and will conclude by discussing how I am extending this research with a data collection project in rural Malawi.
Co-Sponsored with the Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility Working Group
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W. Bradford Wilcox, University of Virginia
2019-12-11 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
“Talking Left, Living Right: Education, Ethnicity & Family Stability in the Golden State”
Co-Author: Wendy Wang, Institute for Family Studies
Abstract: California has a reputation as a vanguard for the kinds of progressive values—like expressive individualism, personal fulfillment, and tolerance—associated with the second demographic transition (SDT). The SDT is associated with less marriage and greater family instability, among other things. But it turns out that, when it comes to the practice of family life, California has more intact, married families than the nation as a whole. Why is this? We argue that California has a disproportionate share of Asians and especially immigrants, and these two groups are more likely to embrace a familistic way of life and reject SDT values. We also note that more educated Californians, while they embrace progressive values in theory and in public, are more likely to embrace and live out familistic values in their own private family lives. So, immigrants, Asians, and more educated Californians disproportionately make up the ranks of Californians who are living in intact, married families.
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Ken Smith, University of Utah
2020-01-08 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
“Biodemography of Fertility and Longevity Using the Utah Population Database”
Abstract: There is growing awareness that fertility affects rates of aging, adult survival prospects, and the likelihood of reaching exceptionally old ages. Much of this work, including our own, has focused on women and their ages at last birth, a proposed biodemographic marker for rates of aging. This literature has given far less attention to men, the risk of specific causes of death, the role of early initiation of fertility and how these forces may change over historical time. We use the Utah Population Database to examine how fertility alters adult mortality risks. We give special attention the role of late age at last birth, but also the role of early and late ages first birth Increasing parity is associated with worse survival for women and better for men. This talk will also present the opportunities made possible by the Utah Population Database, a unique resource of 11 million persons comprising genealogies, vital and medical records, as well as demographic and spatial data.
More on Prof. Smith
Access Seminar Recording

Pablo Barberá, University of Southern California
2020-01-15 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
“Does Online Partisan Media Affect Attitudes and Behavior?”
Abstract: In today’s fragmented online media ecosystem, does exposure to political news through partisan media have a measurable effect on citizens’ political attitudes and behavior? Or are these outlets merely preaching to the choir? And if such media effects exist, are they durable and homogeneous across political groups? To answer these questions, we conducted a pre-registered, randomized field experiment embedded in a nationally representative online panel survey. We incentivized participants to temporarily alter features of their information environment during the 2018 U.S. midterm election campaign. Subjects in the treatment groups were asked to change their default browser homepage to either FoxNews.com or HuffPost.com. Using web browsing data collected for our respondents, we find that our intervention exogenously and durably altered news consumption habits. We then evaluate how our treatment affected political attitudes, voting behavior, and civic knowledge, which we measure based on survey responses collected at periodic intervals after our intervention, up to one year later. Our results generally show negligible persuasive and agenda-setting effects, consistent with the minimal media effects hypothesis. However, we uncover a meaningful decrease in overall media trust among those exposed to Fox News and an increase in support for liberal immigration policies among those in the Huffington Post treatment group.
Find out more about Prof. Barberá

Christian Dippel, University of California, Los Angeles
2020-01-22 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
“The Effect of Land Allotment on Native American Households During the Assimilation Era”
Abstract: In the early twentieth century, the U.S. government broke up millions of acres of communally owned reservation lands and allotted them to individual Native American households. Households initially received land allotments with limited property rights (‘in trust’), and were incentivized to prove themselves “competent” in order to obtain full legal title (‘fee simple’) after a set period. Indian allotment thus had elements of a conditional transfer program aimed at assimilation. The policy was ended suddenly in 1934, locking in-trust land into its status in perpetuity. We link land allotment information to the universe of Native American households in the 1940 U.S. Census. We exploit quasi-random variation in being allotted as well as in securing the allotment in fee simple. Obtaining an allotment significantly increased the likelihood of living on a farm but not of working as a farmer, indicating that allottees leased out their land. Allotments also impacted wages and occupational rank. Surprisingly, allotment most significantly impacted educational attainment. We interpret education as a way of signalling “competency” to government agents. Obtaining the land in fee simple was associated with decreased likelihood of living on a farm and owning one’s home, evidence that many allottees sold their land once they were deemed competent and obtained title. The fee-simple effects were more pronounced within tribes whose ancestral tribal norms emphasized private over communal property, indicating a cultural determinant in how the wealth transfer was utilized. Consistent with this, households in tribes with traditions of private property also engaged in more signalling of their assimilation.
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Nancy Krieger, Harvard University
2020-01-29 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
“Structural Racism and the People’s Health: History and Context Matters”
Abstract: In this presentation on “Structural racism & the people’s health: history & context matters,” I commence with a brief reminder as to our current societal and ecological context, after which I introduce the ecosocial theory of disease distribution, which guides my work, including conceptualization and measurement of structural injustice. I then offer empirical examples of my research on structural racism and health inequities, in relation to Jim Crow and both past and present residential segregation, as measured using the Index of Concentration at the Extremes for racialized economic segregation and also historical redlining (as delineated by the 1930s federally-sponsored maps produced by the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC)). Health outcomes addressed include: preterm birth; infant mortality; child mortality; cancer incidence, stage at diagnosis, and mortality; and breast cancer estrogen receptor status. The presentation concludes with reflections on embodied histories, health inequities, and the people’s health.
*Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health
Find out more about Prof. Krieger

Tips on Giving Effective PAA Presentations and Posters, Job Talks, and the Like, Including Ethical Considerations
2020-02-12 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Workshop: Tips on Giving Effective PAA Presentations and Posters, Job Talks, and the Like, Including Ethical Considerations
Speakers: Don Treiman, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, Sociology
Comments by: Anne Pebley, Fred H. Bixby Chair and Distinguished Professor, Community Health Science & Patrick Heuveline, Professor, Sociology.
View Slides Here

Alyson van Raalte, Max Planck Institute
2020-02-19 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Beyond Life Expectancy—The Case for Monitoring Lifespan Variation
Abstract: Human population health is generally monitored by average mortality levels, typically in terms of life expediencies or age-standardized death rates, which belie substantial variation in length of life. Variation in ages at death, captured by a metric of lifespan variation, should be used to supplement measures of average longevity when comparing or monitoring societies and population subgroups. Although lifespan variation has historically been strongly inversely correlated with life expectancy, we are beginning to see this relationship reversed, resulting in positive correlation in some countries or sub-national populations. Often these changes reflect midlife mortality crises with roots in stratified education and wealth. In this talk I will present empirical examples from around the developed world, pressing the case to monitor lifespan variation.
View Presentation
Find out more about Prof. Van Raalte

Darrick Hamilton, Ohio State University
2020-02-26 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Race, Millennials and Wealth in the Aftermath of the Great Recession
Abstract: As America becomes more plural, it is critical to view race as a pillar and not just an issue in our economy. Despite the narrative that with hard work, resilience, grit, and personal responsibility – people can pull themselves up, and achieve economic success; high achieving black Americans, as measured by education, still exhibit large economic and health disparities relative to their white peers, especially in the domain of wealth. This may be worsening, in the aftermath of the great recession, the homeownership gap for young adult black Millennials is larger than any other generation in over 100 years. This talk will examine these issues, and present a political economy and policy apparatus that can bring about a racially and economically inclusive America.
*Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health
Find out more about Prof. Hamilton

Jonathan Skinner, Dartmouth University
2020-03-04 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Hospital Productivity and the Misallocation of Healthcare Inputs
Abstract: There is growing evidence for wide variation in total factor productivity across hospitals, with large differences in risk-adjusted health outcomes as well as expenditures. In this paper, we consider the additional contribution of misallocation in input choices – the underuse of effective inputs and overuse of ineffective ones — to explain why some hospitals get better outcomes at lower cost. The sample is of 1.7 million patients in the Medicare fee-for-service population with acute myocardial infarction (AMI), or heart attacks, during 2007-17. The problem of confounding health factors is addressed in several ways, including the use of tourists, whose assignment to hospitals resembles random assignment (Doyle, 2011), and ZIP-code fixed effects. Briefly, we find strong evidence for input misallocation across hospitals; greater use of highly effective inputs, such as beta blocker, statin, and ACE/ARB drug treatments, primary care support, and stenting are predictive of highly-productive hospitals, while an excess of multiple physicians, scans, and potentially fraudulent excess home health care billings are predictive of low-productivity hospitals.
Co-Sponsored with the Dept. of Economics
View Presentation
Find out more about Prof. Skinner

PAA Practice, UCLA
2020-04-15 12:00 - 13:30
Please join us to hear our residents interesting research and give feedback for their PAA presentations
Presenters:
Michelle Nakphong Kao: “Contemporary Trends in Marriage Formation and Dissolution in Cambodia”
Jacob Thomas: “From “Illegal” to “Undocumented”—The Impact of a Lexical Shift In a Political Campaign Against Dehumanization”
Heidi West: “Are wives of migrants in rural Bangladesh really “Left Behind”? A nuanced analysis of how spousal migration affects women’s healthcare utilization and mental, social, and general health”
Seminar will be presented via zoom

Harold A. Pollack, University of Chicago
2020-04-22 12:00 - 13:30
Improving Emergency first Response and Follow-up for Individuals Who Experience Behavioral Crisis
Abstract: Men and women who experience serious mental illness and other challenges face increased risk of violent encounters with police officers and other first-responders. This talk describes person-, place-, and event-based strategies to improve emergency response to such incidents. It also discusses promising strategies of prevention and follow-up to reduce the risk of such violent encounters from occurring or re-occurring.
Co-sponsored with the California Policy Lab
Find out more about Prof. Pollack
Location: Presented remotely via Zoom
Zoom Recording Available Here

Amani Allen, University of California Berkeley
2020-04-29 12:00 - 13:30
Race, Racism and (Un)healthy Aging: How socially-assigned race gets in to the body
Abstract: This talk will explore the concept of race and interrogate how ontological conceptions of race impact the questions we ask, the nature of our scientific investigations, and the conclusions we draw from scientific evidence. Drawing on recent findings from the African American Women’s Heart & Health Study, the talk will demonstrate the use of mixed methods research and intersectional framing to examine how racism gets into the body to impact racial health disparities, resulting in premature biological aging; and conclude with a discussion of implications for how we approach population health.

*Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health
Find out more about Prof. Allen
Location: Presented remotely via Zoom
Zoom Recording Available Here

Kate Baldwin, Yale University
2020-05-07 12:00 - 13:30
Accountability and Inclusion in Customary Institutions: Evidence from a Village-Level Experiment in Zimbabwe (with Eric Mvukiyehe and Shylock Muyengwa)
Find out more about Prof. Baldwin
*Co-sponsored with the Public Policy and Applied Social Science Seminar (PPASS)
Location: Presented remotely via Zoom
