CESR Seminar and Brown Bag Series
For more information on the seminar presentations, or if you would like to attend the presentation, or to meet with any of the speakers, please contact Dan Silver or Zach Wagner.
For more information on the brown bag presentations, or if you would like to attend the presentation or be added to our list for announcements, please contact Michele Warnock.
CESR Seminar & Brown Bag Series
Brown Bag | Arthur Stone, USC CESR
Monday, October 12
12pm – 1pm PT
VPD 203 and Zoom
Seminar | Anja Sautmann, World Bank
Monday, October 26
12pm – 1pm PT
VPD 203 and Zoom
Seminar | Wilbert van der Klaauw, New York Federal Reserve
Monday, November 2
12pm – 1pm PT
VPD 203 and Zoom
Seminar | Ori Heffetz, HUJI
Monday, November 9
12pm – 1pm PT
VPD 203 and Zoom
Seminar | Jose Scott, USC Schaeffer
Monday, November 16
12pm – 1pm PT
VPD 203 and Zoom
Seminar | Kate Miller, Johns Hopkins
Monday, November 30
12pm – 1pm PT
VPD 203 and Zoom
Social-Science Genetics Seminars
Fergus McCormack
Thursday, November 5
9am – 10am Pacific Time
Zoom (See email for Zoom link)
Abstract: Why is depression linked to persistent non-employment, and how can mental healthcare policy be better designed to improve mental health and employment outcomes? Using variation in the timing of the recurrence of depressive episodes and involuntary redundancies, we provide evidence for the “depression trap”: a self-reinforcing cycle of poor mental health and non-employment. This suggests that preventative treatment could be highly effective, but it is difficult to predict ex-ante who will enter the trap. Building on recent advances in genetic psychiatry, we show that a Polygenic Index for depressive symptoms is a uniquely powerful predictor of the depression trap and its persistence. We embed the “depression trap” mechanism in a structural life-cycle model of health, labor supply and treatment. We find that targeting limited therapeutic resources towards individuals with high genetic risk for depression improves the clinical efficacy of treatment by 29%. Furthermore, we estimate that by increasing employment through improved treatment allocation, the information provided genetic risk generates a net fiscal surplus sufficient to finance the cost of universal genotyping.
Bio: Fergus McCormack is a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Cambridge, supervised by Eric French and Weilong Zhang, and is on the 2026–27 academic job market. His research lies at the intersection of health economics, labor economics and genetics. He studies how genetic risk and mental health shape employment, earnings and disability over the life cycle, and how policy can improve both mental health and economic outcomes. His job market paper provides evidence that genetic risk for depression can help trap people in a cycle of poor mental health and non-employment. It then uses a structural life-cycle model to evaluate incorporating genetic data into mental health care. Other work triangulates the causal effect of depression on economic outcomes using panel and Mendelian randomization methods, and studies how the child penalty differs by genetic endowment in Norway and the UK. He also examines how genetic predispositions shape the U-shaped curve of wellbeing over the life cycle. His doctoral research has been supported by the ESRC, the Cambridge Trust, the SHARE Foundation and a Forethought Fellowship. He received his MPhil in Economic Research from Cambridge and his MA in Economics from the University of Edinburgh.
Tomeu Lopez-Nieto Veitch
Thursday, December 3
9am – 10am Pacific Time
Zoom (See email for Zoom link)