The Health Sector and the Economy 2017
“The Health Sector and the Economy 2017” conference brought faculty, research professionals, and students together to explore health care issues, from the opioid epidemic to patient-centered care to health innovation productivity, by utilizing theoretical and empirical analysis tools. Casey Mulligan, Acting Director of the Program on Foundational Research on Health Care Markets and Policies, organized the conference to highlight important research questions on how health care policies can result in unintended consequences such as inefficiencies in health care delivery, increased spending, or limited coverage.
Among the key findings presented, Jonathan de Quidt of Stockholm University found that depression can decrease labor supply and ultimately lead to a poverty trap, while Christopher Ruhm of the University of Virginia discovered that the drug epidemic’s link to economic decline at the county-level is relatively weak and only accounts for one-ninth of the increase in drug overdoses. Mark Pauly of the University of Pennsylvania and Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University both explored how health care innovations may be stifled by the very policies intended to stimulate research and development, resulting in high costs and low productivity.
The conference was preceded by the 2017 Emerging Scholars Roundtable, in which the program’s eight 2017-18 Health Economics Fellows presented their research in progress to their peers from various institutions and faculty from several departments at The University of Chicago. The roundtable offered Fellows the opportunity to receive valuable feedback on their research and network with health economists studying diverse topics.
Photos from the conference can be found here.
Photos from the Emerging Scholars Roundtable can be found here.
