Senior Fellow
Center on Labor, Human Services and Population
"The immediate challenge I see in promoting upward mobility for low-income families is enabling them to cope with the uncertainties of income and expenses. This means ensuring access to the public benefits and services they are entitled to receive. It also means improving their capacity to make well-informed consumer choices, ranging from nutritional intake to financial services. My focus is on building a strong empirical basis for policy design, administrative practice, and market innovation."
Mills brings more than thirty-five years of experience in policy analysis and evaluation research on programs that aim to promote economic mobility for low-income households. His work has focused on program areas such as: financial services for the under banked population, housing assistance, nutritional support, anti-drug law enforcement, child support, and community development. Prior to rejoining the Urban Institute in 2010 (where he worked in the 1980s on federal budget policy), Mills was a senior research director in applied behavioral economics at Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science, a principal associate at Abt Associates (a co-recipient in 2009 of the Daniel Bell Award for best scholarly article), and held governmental positions at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Economic Affairs and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Mills has directed many experimental and quasi-experimental studies using survey data and administrative records to estimate program effects on participating households. These projects include large-scale, multi-year, randomized studies of individual development accounts, housing vouchers, and homeownership counseling. These evaluations typically combined impact estimates with process studies to focus on qualitative dimensions of agency implementation and participant experience.
Dr. Mills received his Ph.D. in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Selected Publications from Gregory B. Mills
Assessing the Evidence about Work Support Benefits and Low-Income Families Can Savings Help Overcome Income Instability? Publications by topic:
Job Opportunities
Income and Wealth Distribution
Employment/Income Data
Employment
See all publications by Gregory B. Mills
Latest Research
