Italo Lopez Garcia

Italo Lopez Garcia is a Senior Economist/Research Scientist at the Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) at USC. He is a labor and development economist, who focus on the study of human capital development at different stages over the life cycle. He is the Co-Principal Investigator of a NICHD-funded cluster RCT in rural Kenya and an RCT in Chile, which evaluate the effectiveness of early childhood development (ECD) interventions to improve children’s cognitive and socioemotional development among disadvantaged populations. His work also involves studying how older workers in the United States make health investments and labor supply decisions, and how these choices impact their long-term cognitive health and well-being. In a recently NIA-funded study, he examines how the individual’s abilities and occupational job demands jointly determine work capacity at older ages and the implications for policy. In his research, he employs a variety of research designs including randomized control trials, quasi-experimental methods, and structural dynamic behavioral models. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University College of London and prior to joining CESR, he was an Economist at RAND Corporation.