Frederick Zimmerman

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Frederick J. Zimmerman is an economist with a background in the political economy of health and social policy. His research illuminates the intersection of economics and the determinants of health.

Dr. Zimmerman has a particular interest in how economic structure—including poverty and inequality and housing markets—influence population health. Research topics have included the measurement of health equity; the effects of housing affordability on health; transportation and health; media use and child development; and the opportunity costs of medical spending.

Dr. Zimmerman’s work has integrated economic, sociological, and psychological perspectives of behavior into a multi-level theory that unifies both individual and population-level determinants of health. His current research is in the UCLA Center for Health Advancement, where he has developed measures to systematically track health equity over time and across jurisdictions. His Win-Win simulation model of the impact of health and social policy on population health has shown how high-school graduation rates, crime rates, and local government finances are affected by multi-sectoral interventions in several jurisdictions around the country.

The New York Times, NPR, the BBC, Radio France Internationale and many other media outlets have covered Dr. Zimmerman’s research.

Dr. Zimmerman teaches classes on Advanced Statistical Research Methods, Determinants of Health, and Public Health Ethics.

Selected Publications:

  • Frederick J. Zimmerman. Public Health and Autonomy: A Critical Reappraisal. Hastings Center Report. December, 2017.
  • Selena E. Ortiz, Frederick J. Zimmerman, Gary J. Adler. Increasing Public Support for Obesity Prevention Policies using the Taste-Engineering Frame and Consumer-Oriented Values. Social Science & Medicine. 156:142-153. May, 2016.Donglan Zhang, Philippe J. Giabbanelli, Onyebuchi Arah and Frederick J. Zimmerman. Impact of Different Policies on Unhealthy Dietary Behaviors in an Urban Adult Population: An Agent-based Simulation Model American Journal of Public Health 104(7): 1217-1222. July, 2014.
  • Zimmerman, Frederick J. “Habit, custom, and power: A multi-level theory of population health.” Social Science & Medicine 80 (2013): 47-56.
  • Jeffrey C. McCullough, Frederick J. Zimmerman, Jonathan E. Fielding and Steven M. Teutsch. A Health Dividend for America: The Opportunity Cost of Excess Medical Expenditures. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 43(6):650-654. December, 2012.
  • Åsa Ljungvall and Frederick J. Zimmerman. Long-term Time Trends and Disparities in Body-mass Index among U.S. Adults 1960–2008. Social Science & Medicine 75(1):109- 119. July, 2012.
  • Zimmerman FJ, Christakis DA, Meltzoff AN. Associations Between Media Viewing and Language Development Among Children Under 2 Years Old Journal of Pediatrics 2007 Oct;151(4):364-8.
  • Zimmerman FJ and Christakis DA. Children’s Television Viewing and Cognitive Outcomes: A Longitudinal Analysis of National Data. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 159(7):619-625. July, 2005.
  • Zimmerman FJ, Carter MR. Asset Smoothing, Consumption Smoothing and the Reproduction of Inequality under Risk and Subsistence Constraints. Journal of Development Economics 2003 (August) 71(2): 233-260.

Faye Nixon

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Farre (“Faye”) Nixon (she/her) is a freelance designer and adjunct instructor residing in Los Angeles. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Urban Studies and Planning from MIT and dual Master degrees in Architecture and Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design.

Her research interests include investigating speculative and critical design methodologies, using creative writing techniques such as worldbuilding as a design tool, interrogating the ways emerging technologies and design intersect, and designing for humans and their non-human counterparts within the context of uncertain climate futures. She was recently contracted as a Design Lead with Experimental Design, an agency specializing in the creation and visualization of narrative worlds, where she led a team of researchers, screenwriters, and producers to visualize a future in which a major European auto manufacturer transitioned away from producing cars to instead become a global leader in the circular economy.

Faye is also a strong advocate for transdisciplinary and collaborative practice, an ethos she tries to embody through her own practice as a planner, architect, landscape designer, and co-instructor. She currently co-teaches Advanced Visual Communications for graduate planning students at UCLA with Ellen Epley, and Asymmetries of Access, a transdisciplinary seminar on the participatory design of public spaces for the inclusion of racial and gender non-conforming minorities, at the University of Southern California. She has previously worked as a Landscape Designer for the non-profit planning and design firm Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) and for the Oslo-based office of Snøhetta

Jose Richard Aviles

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Jose Richard Aviles is a Transportation Analyst for the Othering and Belonging Institute. As part of the Community Power and Policy Partnerships team, they support government agencies and partners with community organizations by providing trainings, technical assistance, and evaluation support centering lived experience, vision, and self-determination of the communities most impacted by transit inequities.

Prior to joining OBI, Aviles worked at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation where they co-created a department-wide Spanish Transportation Planning Glossary, creating a tool that allowed for a more cohesive and inclusive language for transit advocates and transportation planners. Additionally, Aviles created and facilitated healing circles in South Central as part of LADOT Vision Zero’s community engagement efforts. Their first publication under the American Planners Association Viewpoint magazine, “Planners as Therapists, Cities as Clients,” explores the intersections between Social Work practice and equity within Urban Planning.

Aviles draws inspiration from their involvement with the Bus Riders Union in Los Angeles and participation in other social justice movements like marriage equality. Aviles holds a Masters of Social Work and a Masters of Urban Planning from the University of Southern California. Their current research interests lie in the relationship between behavior and the built-environment, city consciousness, and community engagement.

Jonathan Shum

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Jonathan Shum is a Senior Vice President of Development for Related California. Mr. Shum is responsible for leading all aspects of the development process, including acquisition, entitlements, finance, design, construction, marketing, and sales/leasing for numerous mixed-income and mixed-use developments located throughout California.

Since joining Related in 2010, Mr. Shum has managed over $750 million of mixed-income and mixed-use developments, including The Avery in San Francisco, a $600 million mixed-income development with 548 residential units and 17,000 square feet of retail; The Emerson in Los Angeles, a $125 million mixed-income development with 271 residential units and 5,500 square feet of retail; and Triada at the Station District in Santa Ana, a $50 million affordable housing development with 114 residential units.

Mr. Shum is a board member of the East Cut Community Benefits District in San Francisco and a faculty lecturer, teaching real estate development at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He is an active member of the Urban Land Institute and the Asian Business Association, and a regular volunteer with Habitat for Humanity International. Prior to joining Related, Mr. Shum was a real estate investment banker at Credit Suisse and Houlihan Lokey in New York, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles. He holds a Master in Real Estate Development and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California

LinkedIn profile

Juan Matute

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Juan researches public transit, transportation finance and governance, new mobility, and parking. He led UCLA’s work on two strategic transit plans for the State of California and long-range climate action plans for two Southern California communities. Juan has worked with research teams to quantify the number of parking spaces in Los Angeles County, assess life-cycle environmental impacts of the Los Angeles Metro system, and examine the cost-effectiveness of GHG reductions from California’s High Speed Rail.

As a Lecturer in Urban Planning, Juan teaches graduate classes related to Transportation Policy and Planning and Environmental Assessment for Urban Systems. As Deputy Director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, Juan manages the Center’s operations, external relations, research, and student programs.

Juan holds an MBA and Urban Planning MA from UCLA and a BA from Pomona College.

Wesley Yin

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Wesley “Wes” Yin is an Associate Professor of Economics at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and the Anderson School of Management. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Faculty Affiliate at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT. He is currently serving as Vice Chair of the Department of Public Policy at the Luskin School.

Yin’s research focuses on health care, consumer finance and protections, and economic inequality. His recent work analyzes the prevalence of medical debt and its impact on disparities, well-being and financial health; as well as the consequences of health care pricing reforms, insurance marketplace design, and rising industry market power.

His work has been published in leading economics and policy outlets such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, JAMA, Health Affairs, and the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, and has been featured in or he has written for media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Vox, and others.

From 2012 to 2014, Yin served in the Obama Administration as Acting Chief Economist and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Microeconomic Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and as a Senior Economist in the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where he advanced policies aimed at reducing student debt burden, improving affordability and quality of health care, and improving housing market stability and low-income home-ownership. Since 2014, Yin has advised the state of California on health care reforms, including the design of the recent expansion of state premium subsidies for marketplace insurance.

Previously, he was an assistant professor at the University of Chicago and Boston University, and a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy at Harvard University. He received his PhD in economics from Princeton University.

 

Selected Publications  

The Impact of Financial Assistance Programs on Health Care Utilization. 2021. (with Ray Kluender, Neale Mahoney and Francis Wong). NBER Working Paper No. 29227. Conditionally Accepted at American Economic Review: Insights.

Personalized Telephone Outreach Increased Health Insurance Take-Up for Hard-to Reach Populations. 2022. (w/ Rebecca Myerson, Nicholas Tilipman, Andrew Fehrer, Honglin Li, and Isaac Menashe) Health Affairs 41(1): 129–137.

Medical Debt in the United States, 2009-2020. 2021. (with Ray Kluender, Neale Mahoney and Francis Wong) Journal of the American Medical Association 326(3). Media Coverage: NY Times, Washington Post, Vox, Marketwatch, CBS Evening News, Marketplace. JAMA editorial.

The Role of Behavioral Frictions in Health Insurance Marketplace Enrollment and Risk: Evidence from a Field Experiment. 2021. (with Richard Domurat and Isaac Menashe) American Economic Review 111(5): 1549–1574. [Online Appendix] Media Coverage: Tradeoffs Podcast

The Market for High-Quality Medicine: Retail Chain Entry and Drug Quality in India. 2019. (with Daniel Bennett) Review of Economics and Statistics 101(1) p.76-90 [Appendix]

Insurers’ Negotiating Leverage and the External Effect of Medicare Part D. 2015. (with Darius Lakdawalla), Review of Economics and Statistics 97:2 p.314-331 (an earlier version appears as NBER working paper no. 16251). Media coverage: New Yorker

R&D Policy, Agency Costs and Innovation in Personalized Medicine. 2009. Journal of Health Economics 28(5): 950-962.

Market Incentives and Pharmaceutical Innovation. 2008. Journal of Health Economics 27(4):1060-1077.

Female Empowerment: Impact of a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines. 2010. (with Nava Ashraf and Dean Karlan) World Development 38(3): 333-344.

The Effect of the Medicare Part D Prescription Benefit on Drug Utilization and Expenditures (with Anirban Basu, James Zhang, Atonu Rabbani, David Meltzer, Caleb Alexander) Lead article at Annals of Internal Medicine 148(3): 169-177. Annals’ Summary for Patients.

Designing Targeting Schemes with Poverty Maps: Does Disaggregation Help?. 2007. (with Berk Özler, Chris Elbers, Tomoki Fujii, Peter Lanjouw) Journal of Development Economics 83(1).

Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines. 2006. (with Nava Ashraf and Dean Karlan) Quarterly Journal of Economics 121(2). Winner of TIAA-CREF 2006 Certificate of Excellence.

Deposit Collectors (with Nava Ashraf and Dean Karlan). 2006. Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy 6(2), Article 5.

 

Working Papers

Provider Market Power and Adverse Selection in Health Insurance Markets (with Nicholas Tilipman)

The Burden of Medical Debt and the Impact of Debt Forgiveness (with Ray Kluender, Neale Mahoney and Francis Wong). J-PAL Summary. AEA Pre-registration 1 (Old Debt). AEA Pre-registration 2 (Young Debt).

The Clinical and Economic Consequences of Reimbursement Reforms in Health Care (with Amanda Starc and Darius Lakdawalla)

 

Other Publications and Policy Articles  

“Options To Improve Affordability In California’s Individual Health Insurance Market,” (with Peter Lee, Katie Ravel and Nicholas Tilipman), a Covered California report for Gov. Newsom, California State Senate and State Assembly pursuant to AB1810, February, 2019

“How retail drug markets in poor countries develop” (with Dan Bennett) VoxDev.org, August, 13th, 2018.

“Potential Impacts of Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson on Californians and the Individual Health Insurance Market” (with John Bertko) Covered California Report, September 25, 2017

“Evaluating the Potential Consequences of Terminating Direct Federal Cost-Sharing Reduction (CSR) Funding” (with Richard Domurat) Covered California Report, January 26, 2017  [Appendix]

“Trump’s “populist” economic proposals come with massive catches. Here’s what to watch for.” Vox, November 18, 2016

Strengthening Risk Protection through Private Long-Term Care Insurance. Brookings Institution, Hamilton Project Discussion Paper 2015-06, June 2015. Policy Brief.

Value of Survival Gains in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (with John Penrod, J. Ross Maclean, Darius Lakdawalla and Tomas Philipson) American Journal of Managed Care 2012 Nov;18(11 Suppl):S257-64

The impact of Medicare Part D on Medicare-Medicaid Dual-eligible Beneficiaries’ Prescription Utilization and Expenditures (with Caleb Alexander and Anirban Basu), Health Services Research, February 2010, 45(1), pp. 133-151   

Valuing health technologies at NICE: Recommendations for Improved Incorporation of Treatment Value in HTA (with Dana Goldman, Darius Lakdawalla and Tomas Philipson) Health Economics October 2010, 10(11) pp. 1109-1116

Solutions and Challenges to Curing Global Health Inequality Innovations 2(4), October 2007, 2(4), pp. 72-80

Testing Savings Product Innovations Using an Experimental Methodology (with Nava Ashraf and Dean Karlan), Asian Development Bank, Economics and Research Department Technical Paper No. 8. November, 2003

A Review of Commitment Savings Products in Developing Countries (with Nava Ashraf, Nathalie Gons, Dean Karlan) ERD Working Paper, July 2003.

 

Current Teaching

Public Finance and the Economics of Inequality (Econ 415)

Health Care Finance and Management (MBA and MPP elective) (MGMT298 & PP290)

Econometrics for Policy Analysis (MPP Core) (PP208)

Applied Policy Project (APP) Capstone Advisor (PP298A-D)

Margaret M. C. Thomas

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Margaret (Maggie) Thomas is Assistant Professor of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her scholarship and teaching emphasize structural sources of oppression and privilege, grounded in her practice experiences working with children, youth, and families facing social and economic marginalization.

Dr. Thomas’s research focuses on material hardship, poverty, and economic wellbeing, particularly the consequences of hardship and deprivation for child, youth, and family wellbeing in the US. Her current research projects include work exploring the meaning, measurement, and consequences of material hardship in the US; work focused on inequities between racialized groups in child protective services (CPS) involvement, particularly related to income poverty and material hardship; and work examining social policies as potential causes of and responses to inequities in health and wellbeing, emphasizing policies related to income poverty, material hardship, and social welfare. She also conducts research focused on the wellbeing of sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth, bringing social policy and quantitative methods expertise to a research team engaged in that work. Throughout her research, Dr. Thomas prioritizes engaging and training student research collaborators, responding to community members’ needs for and interest in research engagement, and sharing research findings in accessible ways.

Dr. Thomas teaches courses in Social and Economic Justice and Child and Family Well-Being, including Foundations of Social Welfare Policy (SW 214A) and Poverty, the Poor, and Social Welfare (SW 290L). Her teaching emphasizes social and policy systems, attends to structural forces that create marginalization and opportunity, and supports students’ development of meaningful, relevant knowledge and skills.

Dr. Thomas’s work has been supported by the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy and the Society for Social Work and Research. She was previously a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Columbia School of Social Work, where she worked on the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study.

 

Selected Publications:

Miller, D.P. & Thomas, M.M.C. (2020). Policies to reduce food insecurity: An ethical imperative. Physiology & Behavior, 222. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2020.112943 

Ha, Y., Thomas, M.M.C., Byrne, T.H., & Miller, D.P. (2020). Patterns of multiple instability among low-income families with children. Social Service Review, 94(1), 129-168. https://doi.org/10.1086/708180

Miller, D.P., Thomas, M.M.C., Nepomnyaschy, L., Waller, M., & Emory, A.D. (2020). Father involvement and socioeconomic disparities in child academic outcomes. Journal of Marriage and Family, 82(2), 515-533. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12666

Thomas, M.M.C., Mehta, A., Murphy, J., Childs, E., Sena, B.F., Dimitri, N., Dooley, D., Kane, J., Shen, A., Barros, E., Reid, M., & Bachman, S. (2020). Associations between public housing residency and health behaviors in a cross-sectional sample of Boston adults. Housing Policy Debate, 30(3), 335-347. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2019.1707703

Thomas, M.M.C., Miller, D.P., & Morrissey, T.W. (2019). Food insecurity and child health. Pediatrics, 144(4), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2019-0397

Paceley, M.S., Fish, J., Thomas, M.M.C., & Goffnett, J. (2019). The impact of community size, community climate, and victimization on the physical and mental health of sexual and gender minority youth. Youth & Society, 52(3), 427–448. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X19856141

Ha, Y., Thomas, M.M.C., Narendorf, S.C., & Santa Maria, D. (2018). Correlates of shelter use among young adults experiencing homelessness. Children and Youth Services Review, 94, 477-484. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.08.015

Deshonay Dozier

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Deshonay Dozier completed her Ph.D. in Environmental Psychology from the City University of New York. Dr. Dozier’s scholar-activism provides critical research that shapes public policy and implementation on the issues of housing, homelessness, and alternatives to incarceration. As a UC Chancellor’s Fellow, she will complete a book manuscript on how poor people reshape the penal organization of their lives through alternative visions of Los Angeles. Dr. Dozier teaches a diverse working-class student population at the California State University-Long Beach on how social movements transform geography.

Sherod Thaxton

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Sherod Thaxton is Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law and Faculty Director of the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. He also holds courtesy appointments in the Department of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and in the Departments of African American Studies and Sociology at the UCLA College of Letters and Sciences. Professor Thaxton teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Adjudication, Federal White Collar Crime, Capital Punishment, and Introduction to Legal Analysis. His scholarship centers on quantitative empirical legal studies, with a substantive focus on criminal law, criminal procedure, and the sociology of crime and punishment. Prior to joining the law faculty, he was the Earl B. Dickerson Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School and an attorney in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Office of the Federal Defender for the Eastern District of California.

After receiving his undergraduate degree in political science from the University of California at Davis, Professor Thaxton enrolled in the sociology program at Emory University and studied under the direction of Robert Agnew. While pursuing his graduate studies, he was the principal investigator of the Death Penalty Tracking Project for the Office of the Multi-County Public Defender in Atlanta, Georgia. At Emory, he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees—specializing in criminology and social psychology—and was selected as a finalist for the American Sociological Association Dissertation Award. Professor Thaxton received his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics, an Academy of Achievement student honoree, and a Public Interest Law Prize recipient. He was also an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and the University of Chicago Legal Forum—the only member of his graduating class to serve on multiple journals. Prior to law school, he was a Soros Justice Postgraduate Fellow at the Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation in New York, and a Law and Social Science Doctoral Fellow at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago.

Bibliography
Articles and Chapters

Shrinking the Accountability Deficit in Capital Charging, in Oxford Handbook of Prosecutors, 565 (edited by Russell Gold, Kay Levine & Ronald Wright, Oxford University Press, 2021). Full Text

How Not to Lie About Affirmative Action, 67 UCLA Law Review 834 (2020). Full Text

Metrics of Mayhem: Quantifying Capriciousness in Capital Cases, in The Eighth Amendment and its Future in a New Age of Punishment, 266 (edited by Meghan Ryan & Will Berry, Cambridge University Press, 2020). Full Text

Reexamining the Link between Parental Knowledge and Delinquency: Unpacking the Influence of Adolescents’ and Parents’ Perceptions (with Heather Scheuerman & Jessica Grosholz), 40 Deviant Behavior 703 (2019). Full Text

When Criminal Coping is Likely: An Examination of Conditioning Effects in General Strain Theory (with Robert Agnew), 34 Journal of Quantitative Criminology 887 (2018). Full Text

Disentangling Disparity: Exploring Racially Disparate Effect and Treatment in Capital Charging, 45 American Journal of Criminal Law 95 (2018). Full Text

Disciplining Death: Assessing and Ameliorating Arbitrariness in Capital Charging, 49 Arizona State Law Journal 137 (2017). Full Text

Race, Place, and Capital Charging in Georgia, 67 Mercer Law Review 529 (2016). Full Text

Un-Gregg-ulated: Capital Charging and the Missing Mandate of Gregg V. Georgia, 11 Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy 145 (2016). Full Text

Leveraging Death, 103 Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 475 (2013). Full Text

Does Victimization Reduce Self-Control? A Longitudinal Analysis (with Robert Agnew, Jessica Grosholz, Deena Isom, Heather Scheuerman, and Lesley Watson), 39 Journal of Criminal Justice 169 (2011). Full Text

Do Frustrated Economic Expectations and Objective Economic Inequity Promote Crime? A Randomized Experiment Testing Agnew’s General Strain Theory (with Nicole Leeper-Piquero, Alex R. Piquero, and Cesar J. Rebellon), 6 European Journal of Criminology 47 (2009). Full Text

A General Strain Theory of Racial Differences in Criminal Offending (with Robert Agnew, Joanne M. Kaufman, and Cesar J. Rebellon), 41 Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 421 (2008). Full Text

Determining ‘Reasonableness’ without a Reason? Federal Appellate Review Post-Rita v. United States, 75 University of Chicago Law Review 1885 (2008). Full Text

The Nonlinear Effects of Parental and Teacher Attachment on Delinquency: Disentangling Strain from Social Control Explanations (with Robert Agnew), 21 Justice Quarterly 763 (2004). Full Text

A General Strain Theory Approach to Families and Delinquency (with Robert Agnew and Cesar J. Rebellon), in Families, Crime and Criminal Justice, (edited by Greer L. Fox and Michael L. Benson, JAI Press, 2000). Full Text