About

Welcome to my personal webpage. I am an assistant professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am also an affiliate of the UW-Madison Center for Demography and Ecology, the UW-Madison Center for Demography of Health and Aging, and UW-Madison European Studies.

My research lies at the intersection of demography and population economics. I study the determinants and measurement of the fundamental demographic processes of fertility and mortality.

A central theme in my recent work is the distinction between period and cohort perspectives. Demographic trends are often summarized using period measures such as life expectancy, but these statistics can mask important differences across birth cohorts. Much of my current work explores how cohort perspectives change our understanding of mortality trends, the determinants of fertility, and demographic forecasting.

My work has appeared in journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Population Economics, and Demography, among others. I edit the NEP-DEM, a weekly newsletter of new working papers in demographic economics featured in IDEAS. You can subscribe to it here.

You can contact me at hparolas[at]lafollette.wisc.edu