Biography

Dora Costa is Professor of Economics at UCLA where she teaches economic history. She is also a research associate in the National Bureau of Economic Research’s (NBER) programs on the Development of the American Economy and on Aging and the co-director of the NBER working group Cohort Studies. Costa’s research focuses primarily on issues in labor economics, demography, and health, as interpreted over the long span of American economic history. Her work has covered a wide range of topics including: retirement, elderly living arrangements, determinants of older age mortality and morbidity, long-term trends in the health of the population, trends in leisure, CPI bias and social capital. Most of her research contrasts and compares the past with the present and examines why cross-sectional relations have been changing to better inform our understanding of the future. She is the author of numerous articles and the books “The Evolution of Retirement: An American Economic History 1880-1990″ and “Cowards and Heroes: The Social Face of War”.

Education

Ph.D. University of Chicago

Research Areas

Aging, Economic History, Health Economics