Coffee and Conversation
2025-11-17 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | CCPR Break Room
Join CCPR affiliates for coffee and bagels from Noah’s Bagels, and take the opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Coffee and Conversation is held Mondays at 10:00 AM in the CCPR Break Room.
This week’s session will be hosted by the CCPR Directors and new UCLA Professor Ann Owens, who will be there to guide the conversation, share insights, and connect with attendees in an informal setting.

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.

Coffee and Conversation
2025-12-01 10:00 - 11:00, 2026-01-05 10:00 - 11:00, 2026-03-09 10:00 - 11:00 | CCPR Break Room
Join CCPR affiliates for coffee and bagels from Noah’s Bagels, and take the opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Coffee and Conversation is held Mondays at 10:00 AM in the CCPR Break Room.
This week’s session will be hosted by the CCPR Directors, who will be there to guide the conversation, share insights, and connect with attendees in an informal setting.

Development Workshop: Mary Jo Mitchell (Director of Gov’t and Public Affairs, PAA), “Engaging Policymakers: Role of PAA/APC and Population Scientists”
2025-12-03 12:00 - 13:15 | Zoom
Biography: Since January 2004, Mary Jo H. Mitchell has been the Director of Government Affairs for the Population Association of America and Association of Population Centers. In addition to representing PAA and APC, Ms. Mitchell has co-directed The Census Project since 2008. Prior to her position with PAA/APC, Ms. Mitchell worked at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for approximately 10 years, as the Legislative Officer at the National Institute on Aging and as the Special Assistant to the Director of the NIH Office of Policy of Extramural Research Administration. Ms. Mitchell held positions on Capitol Hill as a Legislative Assistant for U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro and Legislative Correspondent for former U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman. Ms. Mitchell has a Master of Public Administration from George Washington University and is a former Presidential Management Fellow. Her recent leadership positions include serving as President of the Association of Public Data Users, 2021-2022, and as the Chair of the Associates Board of Directors for the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, 2011-2012. In March 2024, Mary Jo was appointed by the U.S. Census Bureau to serve on the 2030 Census Advisory Committee. In 2024, she was named one of Washington, DC’s Top Lobbyists by the National Institute for Lobbying and Ethics.
“Engaging Policymakers: Role of PAA/APC and Population Scientists”
Abstract: The Population Association of America (PAA) and Association of Population Centers (APC), especially through the work of its Government and Public Affairs Committee and the Director of PAA/APC Government Affairs, Mary Jo Mitchell, educate policymakers about the population sciences and the organizations’ federal policy priorities. Please join us on December 3 for a webinar in which Mary Jo Mitchell will discuss how PAA and APC develop and communicate the organizations’ federal policy priorities and how you can play a role. Mary Jo will share tips on how to successfully establish and maintain good communications and relationships with federal policymakers and their staff.

A recording of this event can be found here.

[CANCELLED] CCPR Infrastructure Grant Planning Meeting
2025-12-05 08:00 - 17:00
Join us for the CCPR Infrastructure Grant Planning Meeting exclusively for faculty on December 5, 2025. This session will focus on strategizing proposals and collaborative opportunities for the upcoming grant cycle.

Holiday Coffee and Conversation
2025-12-08 10:00 - 11:00 | CCPR Break Room

Coffee and Conversation
2026-01-12 10:00 - 11:00 | CCPR Break Room
Join CCPR affiliates for coffee and bagels from Noah’s Bagels, and take the opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Coffee and Conversation is held Mondays at 10:00 AM in the CCPR Break Room.
This week’s session will be hosted by Professor Adriana Lleras-Muney, who will be there to guide the conversation, share insights, and connect with attendees in an informal setting.

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.

Workshop: Matias Cattaneo, Princeton University, "Boundary Discontinuity Designs: Theory and Practice"
2026-01-21 12:00 - 15:00 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
Biography: Matias D. Cattaneo is a Professor of Operations Research and Financial Engineering (ORFE) at Princeton University. He is also an Associated Faculty in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), the Department of Economics, and the Program in Latin American Studies (PLAS), and an Affiliated Faculty in the Data-Driven Social Science (DDSS) initiative, the AI at Princeton initiative, and the Center for Statistics and Machine Learning (CSML). Beyond academia, he serves as an Amazon Scholar, and has advised a wide range of organizations worldwide. Matias is an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and the International Association for Applied Econometrics, and an elected Member of the International Statistical Institute. His research interests are interdisciplinary, motivated by quantitative challenges arising in the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. He integrates econometrics, statistics, applied mathematics, data science, and decision science, with applications to program evaluation and causal inference.
Boundary Discontinuity Designs: Theory and Practice
Abstract: We review the literature on boundary discontinuity (BD) designs, a powerful nonexperimental research methodology that identifies causal effects by exploiting a thresholding treatment assignment rule based on a bivariate score and a boundary curve. This methodology generalizes standard regression discontinuity designs based on a univariate score and scalar cutoff, and has specific challenges and features related to its multi-dimensional nature. We synthesize the empirical literature by systematically reviewing over 80 empirical papers, tracing the method’s application from its formative uses to its implementation in modern research. In addition to the empirical survey, we overview the latest methodological results on identification, estimation and inference for the analysis of BD designs, and offer recommendations for practice.
A recording of this event can be found here.

Coffee and Conversation
2026-01-26 10:00 - 11:00 | CCPR Break Room
Join CCPR affiliates for coffee and bagels from Noah’s Bagels, and take the opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Coffee and Conversation is held Mondays at 10:00 AM in the CCPR Break Room.
This week’s session will be hosted by Professor Andres Villarreal, who will be there to guide the conversation, share insights, and connect with attendees in an informal setting.

The Challenges and Promise of Population Research: Insights from CCPR’s Junior Population Scientists
2026-01-28 12:00 - 13:15 | Room 4240A, 4th Floor, Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles Young Dr., LA, CA 90095
CCPR’s Junior Population Scientists are distinguished population scholars and CCPR affiliates from other California universities. Join us in welcoming the inaugural cohort as they briefly introduce their research and insights into the challenges and promises of population research. A Q&A session and reception will follow.

Household decision-making under the microscope: evidence from experiments with Kenyan households
Prachi Jain is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Loyola Marymount University. Her research uses experimental methods to explore topics in behavioral economics, gender economics, and economic development. Her interests are expansive, for example exploring the role of social networks in informal insurance, the underrepresentation of women in labor markets, financial privacy in couples, and the effects of stress on economic decision-making. She is a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Effective Global Action and an external affiliate with the California Center for Population Research. She received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan. She previously was a Postdoctoral Associate at Princeton University and completed her B.A. degree in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Presented Paper here.

Looking Within Families: Differences Among Adult Children and Implications for Support to Older Parents and Their Health

Luoman Bao is an Associate Professor of Sociology at California State University, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on aging, health, and family, with a particular attention to aging experiences and intergenerational dynamics in diverse social contexts, as well as their implications for the health and well-being of older adults. Her work also examines how gender, racial/ethnic, and socioeconomic inequalities shape family experiences and individual health across the aging process. Presented Paper here.

Measuring the population health impacts of immigration policy

Dr. Maria-Elena De Trinidad Young is an immigrant health scholar whose research seeks to understand the impact of the US immigration system on the well-being of immigrants and their families. She has established new frameworks and measures to understand the relationships between immigration policies, citizenship/legal status, and health, and has conducted some of the first empirical studies showing that immigration policy is associated with health inequities. A guiding principle in her work is to partner with immigrants and community members as active contributors in the design and interpretation of research. Her research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and published in a wide range of public health, health policy, and sociological journals, including American Journal of Public Health, The Milbank Quarterly, International Migration Review, and Social Science and Medicine. She received her PhD in community health sciences from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and her MPH with an emphasis in maternal and child health from UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Presented Paper here.

Food insecurity on campus: barriers to food assistance use among college students
Tabashir Nobari, PhD, MPH, is an affiliate at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and an associate professor in the Department of Public Health at California State University, Fullerton. Nobari’s longstanding interest is preventing socioeconomic and racial/ethnic health inequities among young children and college students by addressing health equity barriers through social programs and policies. Her research focuses on the social determinants of health, particularly food insecurity, housing insecurity, homelessness, and adverse childhood experiences. Nobari uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods to understand the impact of policies and programs on college students’ basic needs and early childhood obesity. She focuses on preventing inequities in obesity and food insecurity among young children and college students by addressing health equity barriers (housing insecurity and poverty) through food assistance programs (CalFresh, WIC) and policies. Nobari is a co-investigator on a USDA-funded study to examine the policies, systems, and environments related to access to food at Minority-Serving Institutions. She is co-PI on an NSF-funded study to develop smart technologies for previously unhoused residents of Permanent Supportive Housing in Orange County. She is also a member of the board of directors for Nourish California, an advocacy group working to ensure that all Californians with low income can access the food they need and want. Nobari earned her doctorate in community health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and her master’s in public health in international epidemiology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She completed her postdoc with PHFE-WIC, the largest local agency in the nation for the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. Presented Paper Here.

A recording of this event can be found here.

Coffee and Conversation
2026-02-02 10:00 - 11:00 | CCPR Break Room
Join CCPR affiliates for coffee and bagels from Noah’s Bagels, and take the opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Coffee and Conversation is held Mondays at 10:00 AM in the CCPR Break Room.
This week’s session will be hosted by Professor Mark Handcock, who will be there to guide the conversation, share insights, and connect with attendees in an informal setting.

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.

Reexamining the “Nation of Immigrants”: The Politics of ICE Enforcement
2026-02-05 18:00 - 19:30 | UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center, 425 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join us for a keynote and panel exploring new data on immigration enforcement, stronger state protections, and fair, sustainable policy.

RSVP HERE

With the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) arrests and detentions surging, California’s legislative leadership offers critical lessons on safeguarding rights and rebuilding trust. Join us on February 5, 2026 for a keynote presentation followed by a panel of policymakers, researchers, and advocates who will discuss what the latest data reveal about enforcement patterns, how to strengthen state protections, and what’s next for fair and sustainable approaches to immigration.

Reception 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Lecture and Panel 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Registration is free and required for all guests. We intentionally oversell tickets to ensure a full venue. Entry and seating are first come, first served and not guaranteed, even with a ticket. We recommend arriving early and join the pre-reception to maximize your chance of entry.

Attorney General Rob Bonta will be the keynote speaker.
Panelists include:

Cielo Castro, Chief Impact Officer, California Community Foundation (moderator)
Ahilan Arulanantham, Professor from Practice, UCLA Law; Faculty Co-Director, Center for Immigration Law & Policy
Paul Ong, Director, UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge
Angelica Salas, Executive Director, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA); Luskin Senior Fellow

Briefs can be found here.

TONGVA ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands). As a land grant institution, we pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘Eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.

PHOTO RELEASE
By attending this event, you will be entering an area where photography, audio and video recording may occur. With your presence, you authorize UCLA Luskin and its licensees to photograph you, make sound and/or video recordings of you, and use the recordings for marketing, publicity and promotion of this event and UCLA Luskin generally. Please click on the link for the full UCLA Luskin Notice of Filming Release.
Attendance by a public official will constitute acceptance of a reportable gift.

Coffee and Conversation
2026-02-09 10:00 - 11:00 | CCPR Break Room
Join CCPR affiliates for coffee and bagels from Noah’s Bagels, and take the opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Coffee and Conversation is held Mondays at 10:00 AM in the CCPR Break Room.
This week’s session will be hosted by Professor Randall Kuhn who will be there to guide the conversation, share insights, and connect with attendees in an informal setting.

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.

Coffee and Conversation
2026-02-23 10:00 - 11:00 | CCPR Break Room
Join CCPR affiliates for coffee and bagels from Noah’s Bagels, and take the opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Coffee and Conversation is held Mondays at 10:00 AM in the CCPR Break Room.
This week’s session will be hosted by Professor Graeme Blair, who will be there to guide the conversation, share insights, and connect with attendees in an informal setting.

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.

Coffee and Conversation
2026-03-02 10:00 - 11:00 | CCPR Break Room
Join CCPR affiliates for coffee and bagels from Noah’s Bagels, and take the opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Coffee and Conversation is held Mondays at 10:00 AM in the CCPR Break Room.
This week’s session will be hosted by Professor Carlo Medici, who will be there to guide the conversation, share insights, and connect with attendees in an informal setting.

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.

Coffee and Conversation
2026-03-30 10:00 - 11:00 | CCPR Break Room
Join CCPR affiliates for coffee and bagels from Noah’s Bagels, and take the opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Coffee and Conversation is held Mondays at 10:00 AM in the CCPR Break Room.
This week’s session will be hosted by the CCPR Directors who will be there to guide the conversation, share insights, and connect with attendees in an informal setting.

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.

Coffee and Conversation
2026-04-06 10:00 - 11:00 | CCPR Break Room
Join CCPR affiliates for coffee and bagels from Noah’s Bagels, and take the opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Coffee and Conversation is held Mondays at 10:00 AM in the CCPR Break Room.
This week’s session will be hosted by Professor Felipe Goncalves, who will be there to guide the conversation, share insights, and connect with attendees in an informal setting.

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.

Coffee and Conversation
2026-04-13 10:00 - 11:00 | CCPR Break Room
Join CCPR affiliates for coffee and bagels from Noah’s Bagels, and take the opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Coffee and Conversation is held Mondays at 10:00 AM in the CCPR Break Room.
This week’s session will be hosted by Professor Ian Lundberg, who will be there to guide the conversation, share insights, and connect with attendees in an informal setting.
