2024–25 Grants

Research is what drives us forward.

CCGT fosters academic inquiry at GPS and departments across UC San Diego by offering grants for innovative research for faculty and doctoral students. 

Here is a sample of topics our associates explored this year, with the aim of supporting actionable solutions to global policy problems.

AEA Mentoring Conference

Teevrat Garg, GPS Associate Professor of Economics

CCGT provided financial and organizational support for the second American Economic Association Committee on the Status of Queer Individuals in the Economics Profession (CSQIEP) Mentoring Conference held in San Diego in August 2024. This support helped bring together early-career economists and senior mentors for panels, workshops and networking focused on inclusion and career development in the economics profession. This partnership underscored CCGT’s commitment to fostering diversity, equity and inclusion within the global economics research and policy community.

What Drives Innovation? Places, Producers, Plants or People? 

Gaurav Khanna, GPS Associate Professor of Economics 

Researchers analyzed detailed patent data, including information on inventors, firms and citations, to better understand the drivers of innovation. By linking these records with inventors’ career and location histories, Khanna and collaborators developed a model to measure how much individuals, firms and cities each contribute to innovation outcomes. Their findings reveal that city effects, or the environments where inventors work, are the strongest predictors of patenting activity, offering new insights into what makes certain cities more innovative.

Minority Inflation, Unemployment and Monetary Policy

Munseob Lee, GPS Associate Professor of Economics and Lawrence B. and Sallye K. Krause Chair in Korean Studies

Inflation does not impact all households equally. Using detailed data on retail spending by Black and white households in the U.S., Lee and collaborators Claudia Macaluso and Felipe Schwartzman examined racial differences in inflation. They found that from 2004 to 2020, Black households faced slightly higher and more volatile inflation in consumer goods than white households. The findings underscore the importance of considering racial and demographic factors when developing policies to manage inflation and safeguard household purchasing power.