Pilot Projects | Project Supplements

Current Pilot Projects:

• “Do People Predict Habit formation?”, DellaVigna (Acland)
• "The Benefit of Sleep on Reward-Based Learning of Gains and Losses in Older Adults," Richard Ivry (in collaboration with X-Lab)
• "Biological Stress-Reactivity, Cognitive Styles, and Health-Related Decision Making," Constance Wang (in collaboration with X-Lab)
• "Environmental Correlates of Disabilities in an Older Population," William Satariano
• "The Impact of Population Aging on Investor and Managerial Decisions," Stefano Della Vigna and Joshua Pollet
• “Medicaid Eligibility Rules, Home Equity and Mobility," Thomas Davidoff
• "A High-Throughput Life Table Screening System for Prolongevity Interventions Using the Tephritid Fruit Fly," James Carey
• "Early Life Influences on Later Life Health Outcomes in the US, by Race and Gender," Kenneth Chay
• "Lifetime Experiences and Household Financial Decision Making," Ulrike Malmendier
• "Are Recessions Really Good for your Health? Understanding Procyclical Mortality," Doug Miller, Marianne Page, Ann Huff Stevens
• "Genetic Bases of Prosocial Behavior in Humans," Robb Willer

Recently Completed Pilot Projects:

• "Designing a Rigorous Evaluation of the GRET Insurance Program in Cambodia," David Levine
• "Recovering Distributional Preferences," Shachar Kariv (in collaboration with X-Lab)
• “Research on Universal Health Insurance on Older Adults,” David Card
• "Extension of Omer Gersten Postdoc to Explore a Comparative Study of Neuroendocrine Biomarkers, Social Relations, and the Costs of Cumulative Stress in Costa Rica and Taiwan," Will Dow
• "Neuroendocrine Biomarkers, Social Relations, and the Costs of Cumulative Stress in Taiwan," Omer Gersten
• "Time and Life," Jennifer Aaker (in collaboration with X-Lab)
• “Manufacturing Extended Families: the effects of rapid industrialization on elderly co-residence in China,” David Levine
• “Demography of Gene Expression: Models and hypothesis," Shripad Tuljapurkar

Past Pilot Projects:

The funded research on aging by members of the Center can be grouped under six broad themes:

1. Biodemography of Aging (evolutionary theory; biological experiments; genomic analysis; data building; K12 award for high level training)
2. Demographic and fiscal projections and analysis, Social Security (stochastic projections, mortality forecasting, Social Security projections, Federal, State and Local budget projections, Microsimulation projections, policy advising)
3. Health, Disability and Mortality (macro and micro analyses, descriptive and causal analyses; Human Mortality Database)
4. Behavioral and Experimental Economics (A new initiative to use the Experimental Social Sciences Laboratory to study savings and retirement behavior)
5. Life Cycle Planning and Intergenerational Transfers (Generational Accounting, National Transfer Accounts, life cycle planning, saving and demographic transition)
6. Labor Supply (Changing labor supply at older ages, retirement behavior).

It is also an important goal of the Center to increase research activities among social scientists at Berkeley together with scholars in aging at other institutions. Currently, research by Berkeley members is being conducted in collaboration with scholars at Stanford, UC Davis, the University of Hawaii, the University of Victoria, and The Fresh Pond Research Institute in Cambridge, MA. Many of these collaborations include scholars from a broad range of fields, such as biology, economics, statistics, entomology, nematology, ecology, and sociology. These diverse backgrounds bring fresh perspectives to aging research, and help to generate new approaches to the demography and economics of aging.

One such collaboration has recently resulted in a P01 grant from NIA. The central focus of this research is the biodemography of life span which involves scholars from UC Berkeley, Stanford, and UC Davis. This program is bringing experimental techniques, biological systems, demographic concepts, statistical methods, and theoretical models to bear on questions concerning the determinants of life span in both humans and in non-human model systems including both vertebrates (comparative demography of mammals; birds) and invertebrates (fruit flies; nematodes). For an in depth look at the various projects involved in this program, go to: Biodemography World.