To stimulate innovative research, the Becker Friedman Institute’s Health Economics Research Initiative has awarded fellowships to five pre- and postdoctoral scholars for 2016.
The fellowships are meant to encourage original inquiry that will deepen our understanding of health and health care markets and how they relate to the overall economy. Fellows will conduct and collaborate in research on the economics of health and health care and interact with a large network of other economics scholars at the institute and throughout the University of Chicago.
- Grant Gannaway is a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. His current work focuses on the effects and inefficiencies of the Medicaid program and the role of geographic access in obtaining medical care.
- Adam Jørring is a doctoral candidate in the joint program between the University of Chicago Department of Economics and Booth School of Business. His research agenda is centered on the intersection of macroeconomics and household finance; in his healthcare-focused work, he studies how financial engineering can lower the cost of capital for medical R&D.
- Luca Maini is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University. His main research interest is the intersection of health economics and industrial organization, with a focus on various aspects of the pharmaceutical market, including how regulation affects global launch strategies, the impact of health reform on optimal drug pricing, and how behavioral incentives affect compliance with prescription drugs.
- Wenjia Zhu is a doctoral candidate at Boston University. Her current work focuses on the US employer-based health insurance market, using insurance claims data to analyze the breadth of health plan provider choice and examining demand response to cost–sharing at the service level.
- Maria Polyakova is an assistant professor of health research and policy at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Her research investigates the role of government in the design and financing of health insurance systems, particularly in the relationships between public policies and individuals’ decision-making in healthcare and health insurance.
“Supporting the work of young scholars is a key role that we hope this initiative can play in shaping the course of health economics research,” says initiative co-investigator Casey Mulligan.
Awardees from other universities will be based at their home institution but will visit the Becker Friedman Institute over the course of the next year.
—Mark Riechers