Research Areas
At CESR, our scientists, colleagues and staff pursue compelling, data-driven research in the social sciences and economics that further understanding, policy making and quality of life. In broad terms, our significant areas of interest include:
Aging
Children & Families
Development Economics
Education Economics
Financial Decision Making
Health, Health Disparities, and Socio-Economic Status
Inequality
Mobile Health
Self-Reporting
Subjective Well-Being
Work Disability
Publications
2026 | CESR-Schaeffer Working Paper Series
Albert Weerman, Chirag Patel. LLM-Based Semantic Retrieval and Synthetic Response Generation for Longitudinal Survey Data. Paper No: 2026-001.
The Evidence Base Blog
A collaboration between the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) and the USC Schaeffer Center, The Evidence Base focuses on improving policy in health, economics, and well-being. The blog is a vehicle for timely insights and analysis on current issues.
Posts on our blog are edited for clarity, but have not been subject to a formal, peer-review process.