Economics of Health

Researchers affiliated with the Economics of Health Program study the economic determinants of health, the operation of health care markets, and the financing of health care with particular emphasis on public and private insurance. Core topics of interest include the determinants of "health capital" and the consequences of unhealthy behaviors such as substance abuse, the role of market failure in health care and health insurance markets, and the impact of pubic policies on health care delivery, expenditures, financing, and innovation. The program is the successor to the Health Care and Health Economics Programs, which merged in July 2023.

Read summaries of presentations at the latest program meeting Affiliated Scholars

Program Directors

Christopher Carpenter

Christopher "Kitt" Carpenter is the E. Bronson Ingram Chair and Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt University, where he also holds courtesy appointments in the schools of law and medicine. His research focuses on the effects of public policies on health and family outcomes. He has been an NBER affiliate since 2005.

Amy Finkelstein Profile Photo

Amy Finkelstein is the John and Jennie S. MacDonald Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the co-founder and Co-Scientific Director of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab-North America.  Her research interests focus on public finance and health economics, particularly market failures and government intervention in insurance and health care markets. She has been an NBER affiliate since 2001.

Featured Program Content

This is a figure is a map of the United States titled, Medicare eligibility and debt collections. It is subtitled, reductions in per-capita collections debt at age 65 due to Medicare. The key is labeled, Reductions in annual per-capita collections, USD. It has a descending color scale of different shades of blue, grey, and white. Darker blues represent greater reductions with the darkest shade representing “greater than 52”. Each lighter shade of blue is a descending value: 36 to 52, 24 to 36, 18 to 24, and
Medicare and the Incidence of Household Financial Distress
  • Article
There are large regional differences in the US in the prevalence of consumer financial distress as indicated by debt collection rates, bankruptcies, and...
The figure is a density plot titled, "Length of Clinical Development: Drugs with vs without Breakthrough Designation." The y-axis, which plots density, ranges from 0 to 0.0006, and the x-axis, which represents the number of days between the start of Phase III trials and drug application submission, ranges from 0 to 8,000. Clinical development duration is shorter for drugs with the breakthrough designation. Source: Researchers’ calculations using data from the FDA
Speeding the Development and Approval of Breakthrough Drugs
  • Article
In 2012, to address rising concerns about the time required to develop vital medications, Congress passed legislation creating the Breakthrough Therapy...
Costs and Consequences of COVID’s Impact on Non-Urgent Care shocks - figure
Costs and Consequences of COVID’s Impact on Nonurgent Care
  • Article
A new study of COVID-19-related disruptions in health care sheds light on the value of nonurgent medical care. In Mortality Effects of Healthcare Supply...
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