Helping Leaders Make Better Decisions
Center for Policy Research
faculty experts on a range of disciplines
graduate students conducting research to address pressing issues
research areas connect faculty across departments and disciplines
Featured Event
AI Will Change Everything Except What Matters Most
October 16, 2025
Featured Research
A Capital Idea? The Welfare Effects of Relocating Indonesia’s Government to a New City
Alexander D. Rothenberg, Radine Rafols, Yao Wang, and Yi Jiang
This CPR Working Paper led by CPR Senior Research Associate Alexander Rothenberg examines the welfare effects of relocating Indonesia’s government to a new city.
November 2025 | Download full working paper
Strengthening Snap’s Ability to Address Old Age Food Insecurity
Colleen Heflin, Madonna Harrington Meyer,
The article describes three flaws in SNAP’s design when it comes to serving older adults: its eligibility, certification, and benefit-determination processes come with high levels of administrative burden; the value of SNAP benefits is low compared with the high costs associated with redeeming them; and high state-level variation in SNAP policies produces substantially different conditions depending on where recipients live.
December 2025
Student Alienation in Schools Goes Beyond Low Achievement
Sean J. Drake and Jeffrey Guhin
This brief summarizes findings from a study drawing on over two years of ethnographic fieldwork in two different high schools in Los Angeles, California. The authors identify four types of alienation students experience: feeling like they don't belong, being in schools that can't support their goals, pursuing futures schools don't recognize, and succeeding in someone else's story.
November 2025 | Download Brief
CPR Research Areas
Faculty in the Center for Policy Research (CPR) conduct a broad range of interdisciplinary research related to public policy in the following research areas:
- Education and Labor
- Population Health
- Social Policy and Inequality
- Econometrics
- Energy, Environment and Food Systems
- Public Finance
- Urban, Rural and Regional Studies
Center for Policy Design and Governance
Integrating policy, political and computational sciences in research and instruction to help scientists, practitioners and future public service leaders understand and address future governance challenges.
Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health
Maxwell X Lab
Partnering with the public and nonprofit sectors, the X Lab leverages behavioral science and randomized controlled trials to create cost-effective solutions to complex problems.
CPR/Metro Alumni
The center serves students, graduates and faculty for a lifetime and it's our pleasure to spread the word about the wonderful things going on in CPR and throughout the Maxwell School.
Alums—update us on what you’ve been up to, where you are employed and how your time in CPR impacted your life by filling out our Alumni Update form. We will gladly share your stories in our Connection Newsletter, a publication that shares news about the Center’s students, faculty, staff and alumni. Join us for the events and activities we have throughout the year and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
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