Teaching
I taught in UCLA Luskin's Master of Public Policy (MPP) program from 2005 to 2022. In 2016, I was named Professor of the Year, and my course "Arguing with Data" was awarded "Best Course" in 2015 and 2016.
Courses Taught
Public Affairs 191A/Public Policy 291B: Introduction to Federal Social Policy in the United States
This course provides an introduction to key federal social programs—in the areas of health care, education, labor markets, racial equity and income support—in the United States. The course begins by discussing the goals of social programs, principles of program design from public economics, and approaches to evaluating policy alternatives. The course then covers one substantive policy area each week, discussing the history and purpose of programs in that area, what research shows about their effects, and/or current debates or proposals for reform.
Public Policy 290: Introduction to Descriptive Data Analysis
Students examine current academic research, policy papers, and popular press that use descriptive data analysis, then conduct hands-on data analysis projects. Class meetings include lecture/discussion and workshop sessions. Policy topics covered include understanding long-term trends in income inequality in U.S. and implications of trends in disability insurance (DI) usage for DI and Social Security policy. Practical skills covered include finding data, utilizing online tools to extract data, presenting data effectively (and honestly) in graphs and tables, using Excel and Stata, adjusting for inflation, using regression as descriptive tool, performing regression decomposition, using data to target resources effectively, and detecting and avoiding lies with statistics.
Public Policy 290: The Economics of Education Policy
This course introduces students to topics in economics of education policy, with emphasis on K-12. Topics covered include the human capital model; school desegregation; the roles of money, class size, and other inputs in education quality; teacher quality, teacher labor markets, and teacher compensation; school choice; and K-12 school finance with special emphasis on California. Students learn the economic approach to analyzing educational decisions of individuals and education policies. The course emphasizes the role of evidence in education policymaking, developing students' ability to identify and use credible, policy-relevant quantitative analysis. Each session, students discuss and critique methods of at least one study in depth.
Public Policy 269: Health Care Policy and Finance
This course provides students with an introduction to health economics for public policy. The course will cover research on the determinants of health, the relationship between medical spending and health, how health insurance works and doesn’t work, public health insurance programs, health care quality, the economics of prescriptions drugs, and the economics of health system reform. Finally, students will discuss current issues in health care policy.