Daniel Bennett

Daniel Bennett is an Associate Professor (Research) of Economics at the University of Southern California, jointly appointed in the Department of Economics and the Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) within the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. He is an applied microeconomist whose research lies at the intersection of economic development, global health, and health economics, with extensive field projects in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Economics, Brown University (2008)

Research Interests:

• Poverty and mental health interactions, especially depression in low-income settings
• Impact of health information on market outcomes and individual behavior
• COVID-19 effects on labor markets and mental health in the United States
• Pharmaceutical market organization and drug quality in developing countries
• Sanitation, hygiene, and diarrheal disease prevention

Across these themes, Bennett employs rigorous causal-inference methods—randomized controlled trials, difference-in-differences designs, and structural modeling—often involving large-scale primary data collection and longitudinal surveys.

Research Funding & Grants:

• Principal Investigator, “Depression Treatment and Female Performance in Labor and Marriage Markets in India,” Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) – €294,000
• Principal Investigator, NSF RAPID: “Evaluating the Impact of COVID-19 on Labor Market, Social, and Mental Health Outcomes” – $200,000
• Principal Investigator, NIMH R03: “Socioeconomic Heterogeneity in the Impact of Psychiatric Care: A Secondary Analysis of the RAISE-ETP Trial” – $100,000
• Co-Investigator, JPAL Urban Services Initiative: “Following Up for Better Health: Improving Non-Communicable Disease Compliance in Urban India” – $323,000
• Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development (r4d) Grant – primary funding for India depression RCT

Laboratory & Teams:

Bennett is a core faculty member at the Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR), where he leads survey design and data-collection initiatives, including the high-frequency longitudinal COVID-19 survey of U.S. households. He collaborates extensively with co-authors such as Manuela Angelucci, Victoria Baranov, Simone Schaner, and Robert Rosenheck.