Concentration Chairs: Timothy J. Layton and Mark Shepard
Students in the economics concentration can expect to gain skills in the theoretical and empirical tools of economics, including applied econometrics and the application of economic theory to policy problems. Examples of the type of research they pursue includes economic evaluation of the consequences of healthcare policies for equity and efficiency, conceptual and empirical work identifying and quantifying the welfare and distributional consequences of market failures in healthcare, assessments of the effects of market structure and the industrial organization of healthcare on costs and quality of care, work studying the optimal design of social programs, work studying the determinants of changes in population-level and group-specific health and wellbeing, work focusing on the effects of policies and markets on innovation and the diffusion of medical technologies, assessments of the role of behavioral frictions in determining patient and provider behavior, etc. After they graduate, these students often work in academia, government, think tanks, and industry. Important differences between this concentration and other tracks are (1) the math background that is required, (2) the focus on economic theory and quasi-experimental empirical methods and (3) the focus on research that seeks to answer very general questions about the organization of the healthcare system rather than narrower, more focused policy evaluations.