Work, Families and Public Policy series to begin Feb. 2

Faculty and graduate students from St. Louis-area universities with an interest in topics relating to labor, households, health care, law and social welfare are being invited to take part in a series of Monday brown-bag luncheon seminars to be held biweekly through April.

Now in its eighth year, the “Work, Families and Public Policy” series features one-hour presentations on research interests of faculty from local and national universities.

Presentations will be from noon-1 p.m. in Eliot Hall, Room 300, and will be followed by a half-hour discussion period.

Robert A. Pollak, Ph.D., the Hernreich Distinguished Professor of Economics in Arts & Sciences and the Olin School of Business, has been the lead organizer of the series for the past seven years. The co-organizer is Michael W. Sherraden, Ph.D., the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development and director of the Center for Social Development in the George Warren Brown School of Social Work.

The series is designed to promote interdisciplinary research. The presentations are listed below.

• Feb. 2: Gautam Gowrisankaran, Ph.D., assistant professor of economics in the Olin School, will address “Managed Care, Drug Benefits, and Mortality: An Analysis of the Elderly.”

• Feb. 16: Donald Nichols, Ph.D., assistant professor of economics, will speak on “Racial Differences in the Decision Choice Models of the Hospital Assignment Process.”

• March 1: Mark Rosenzweig, Ph.D., the Mohamed Kamal Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, will discuss “Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World: Caste, Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy.”

• March 15: Olivia Mitchell, Ph.D., will focus on “Prospects for Social Security Reform.” Mitchell is the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor and professor of insurance and risk management and business and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

• March 29: Mark Schnitzler, Ph.D., assistant professor of health administration in the Washington University School of Medicine, will speak on “Investing in Organ Donation.”

• April 12: James J. Heckman, Ph.D., the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, will talk on “Interpreting the Evidence of Family Influence on Child Development.”

• April 26: Katharine Silbaugh, J.D., professor of law at Boston University, will address “Women’s Place: Urban Planning and Work-Family Balance.”

The series is sponsored by the Olin School, GWB and the Center for Social Development, the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in the School of Law, the Department of Economics, the Center for Health Policy and the College of Arts & Sciences.

The classroom is courtesy of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy.

For more information, go online to www.olin.wustl.edu/links and click on the “Academic Seminars” link on the right-hand side.

For additional information, contact Pollak (935-4918; pollak@wustl.edu) or Sherraden (935-6691; sherrad@wustl.edu).

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