Amy Finkelstein’s research is in the areas of public finance and health economics. Her primary research interests are market failures and government intervention in insurance markets, and the impact of public policy on the health care sector. She is one of the two principal investigators currently leading the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, a randomized evaluation of the impact of extending Medicaid coverage to low income, uninsured adults.
Finkelstein joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005 after three years as a junior fellow with the Harvard Society of Fellows. She also spent a year as a visiting professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In addition, she served as a staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers in Washington, D.C. She is currently a co-scientific director of J-PAL North America, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and codirector of NBER’s Public Economics Program.
Finkelstein is the recipient of numerous awards, including the John Bates Clark Medal, the Hicks Tinbergen Award, and the Arrow Award for best paper in health economics from iHEA. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2009 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. She has been a fellow of the Econometric Society since 2012.
Finkelstein has an AB in government from Harvard University. She received her master’s degree in economics from Oxford University, where she was a Marshall Scholar. She earned her doctorate in economics from MIT in 2001.
She has been appointed the 2015–16 George Tolley Fellow, a post supported by a generous gift from MarrGwenn and Stewart Townsend in honor of the emeritus faculty member.
Faculty Page: Amy Finkelstein
Visited 1/1/11 – 3/19/11 , 5/9/16 – 5/13/16