Economics of Health Equity

This is a course for students to discuss recent advances in the economics of health equity. Topics will include equity in all dimensions: race/ethnicity; gender orientation; disability status; and others. Students will read papers, present, and discuss them.

Course Site: ECON 2925

2025

The US Pharmacies

More US Pharmacies Closed Than Opened In 2018–21; Independent Pharmacies, Those In Black, Latinx Communities Most At Risk
by Jenny S. Guadamuz, G. Caleb Alexander, Genevieve P. Kanter, and Dima Mazen Qato

The Rise and Fall of the “Public Health” Pharmacy: A History of Policy, Politics, and Racial Health Inequity in the United States
by Osaremen Okolo

Presenter: Osaremen Okolo

The Economics of Infertility: Evidence from Reproductive Medicine

by Sarah Bögl, Jasmin Moshfegh, Petra Persson and Maria Polyakova

Presenter: Maya Roy

Long COVID

The Costs of Long COVID
by David Cutler

The Association Between Prolonged SARS-CoV-2 Symptoms and Work Outcomes
by Arjun Venkatesh et al.

Presenter: Ernest Yip

Take-up of and Returns to Mental Health Treatment

What Good are Treatment Effects without Treatment?
by CJ Cronin, MP Forsstrom, NW Papageorge

Returns to Mental Health Treatment: Evidence from Bunching
by Cameron Deal and Anne Fournier

Presenter: Cameron Deal

The Health and Employment Effects of Employer Vaccination Mandates

by Ashvin Gandhi, Ian Larkin, Brian McGarry, Katherine Wen, Huizi Yu, Sarah Berry, Vincent Mor, Maggie Syme & Elizabeth White

Presenter: Anthony Bald

Do Policies to Increase Access to Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder Work

by Eric Barrette, Leemore Dafny, and Karen Shen

Presenter: Astrid Petropoulos and Elizabeth Karron

Loneliness in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Effects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Cash Transfers on Older Persons Living Alone in India: A Randomized Trial
by McKelway M, Banerjee A, Grela E, Schilbach F, Sequeira M, Sharma G, Vaidyanathan G, Duflo E.

Income-Based Homophily and Social Capital: An Experiment in Malawi
by Gabriella Fleischman

Presenter: Gabriella Fleischman

Dying or Lying? For-Profit Hospices and End-of-Life Care

by Jonathan Gruber, David H. Howard, Jetson Leder-Luis, and Theodore L. Caputi

Presenter: Lev Klarnet

Two Papers on the Long Shadow of Coercive Public Health Policies

The Legacy of Colonial Medicine in Central Africa
by Sara Lowes and Eduardo Montero

Male Sterilization and the Persistence of Violence: Evidence from the Emergency in India
by Aditi Singh and Sarah Vincent

Presenter: Sarah Vincent

2024

Women’s Employment, Husbands’ Economic Self-Interest and Domestic Violence

by Deniz Sanin

Presenter: Deniz Sanin

The Geography of Health Disparities

by Timothy Layton and Graeme Peterson

Presenter: Graeme Peterson

Experiential Learning in Health

by Gabriella Fleischman

Presenter: Gabriella Fleischman

Why Doesn’t the United States Have National Health Insurance?
The Role of the American Medical Association

by Marcella Alsan and Yousra Neberai

Presenter: Marcella Alsan

Eviction and Poverty in American Cities

by Robert Collinson, John Eric Humphries, Nicholas Mader, Davin Reed, Daniel Tannenbaum, and Winnie van Dijk

Presenter: Kacie L. Dragan

The Long-Term Effects of Income for At-Risk Infants: Evidence from Supplemental Security Income

by Amelia A. Hawkins, Christopher A. Hollrah, Sarah Miller, Laura R. Wherry, Gloria Aldana, and Mitchell D. Wong

Presenter: Sumit Agarwal

Do Higher-Priced Hospitals Deliver Better Quality?

by Zack Cooper, Joseph J. Doyle Jr., John A. Graves, and Jonathan Gruber

Presenter: Jason Buxbaum

Policy Uptake as Political Behavior

Policy Uptake as Political Behavior: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act
by Amy E. Lerman, Meredith L. Sadin, and Samuel Trachtman

Stigma and Social Safety Net Program Participation
by Alice Heath, Michael Holcomb, and Kelsey Pukelis

Presenter: Kelsey Pukelis

The Determinants of Physicians’ Location Choice: Understanding the Rural Shortage

by Elena Falcettoni

Presenter: Victoria Angelova

The Impact of Paid Family Leave on Families with Health Shocks

by Courtney Coile, Maya Rossin-Slater, and Amanda Su

Presenter: Maya Roy

Two Papers About Child Protection

Discrimination in Multiphase Systems: Evidence from Child Protection
by E. Jason Baron, Joseph J. Doyle Jr., Natalia Emanuel, Peter Hull, and Joseph P. Ryan

Government Reactions to Tragedy: How Maltreatment Deaths Impact Child Protection
by Alice Heath

Presenter: Alice Heath

2023

Health Insurance for Redistribution

by Angie Acquatella, Myles Wagner, and Anthony Yu

Presenter: Angie Acquatella

What Does Accreditation Do? A Randomized Trial of Health Care Accreditation across US Jails

by Marcella Alsan and Crystal S. Yang

Presenter: Marcella Alsan

Organization and Performance of US Health Systems

by Nancy Beaulieu, Michael Chernew, Mary Beth Landrum, J. Michael McWilliams, Maurice Dalton, Angela Gu, Michael Briskin, Rachel Wu, Zakaria El Amrani El Idrissi, Helene Machado, Andrew Hicks, and David Cutler

Presenter: David Cutler

The Impact of Provider Payments on Health Care Utilization of Low-Income Individuals: Evidence from Medicare and Medicaid

by Marika Cabral, Colleen Carey, and Sarah Miller

Presenter: Colleen Carey

When Innovation Goes Wrong: Technological Regress and the Opioid Epidemic

by David M. Cutler and Edward L. Glaeser

Presenter: Anthony Bald

The (Lack of) Anticipatory Effects of the Social Safety Net on Human Capital Investment

by Manasi Deshpande and Rebecca Dizon-Ross

Presenter: Kelsey Pukelis

Does Private Equity Investment in Healthcare Benefit Patients? Evidence from Nursing Homes

by Atul Gupta, Sabrina T. Howell, Constantine Yannelis, and Abhinav Gupta

Presenters: Lucas Do and Yibo Sun

LGBTQ (Health) Economics

Effects of Access to Legal Same-Sex Marriage on Marriage and Health: Evidence from BRFSS
by Christopher Carpenter, Samuel T. Eppink, Gilbert Gonzales Jr., Tara McKay

Gender Identity, Race, and Ethnicity Discrimination in Access to Mental Health Care: Preliminary Evidence from a Multi-Wave Audit Field Experiment
by Patrick Button, Eva Dils, Benjamin Harrell, Luca Fumarco, David Schwegman

Presenters: Laura Morris and Michael Nguyen-Mason

2021

Dissecting Racial Bias in an Algorithm Used to Manage the Health of Populations

by Ziad Obermeyer Brian Powers, Christine Vogeli, and Sendhil Mullainathan

Presenter: Laura Morris

Measuring Racial Discrimination in Bail Decisions

by David Arnold, Will Dobbie, and Peter Hull

Presenters: Ljubica Ristovska and Sagar Saxena

Hospital Allocation and Racial Disparities in Health Care

by Amitabh Chandra, Pragya Kakani, and Adam Sacarny

Presenters: Graeme Peterson and Katherine Ianni

Why Is Infant Mortality Higher in the United States than in Europe?

by Alice Chen, Emily Oster, and Heidi Williams

Presenters: Alice Heath and Kristen McCormack

Systemic Discrimination among Large US Employers

by Pat Kline, Evan Rose, and Chris Walters

Presenters: Myles Wagner and Anthony Yu

Disability Insurance: Error Rates and Gender Differences

by Hamish Low and Luigi Pistaferri

Presenters: Gabriella Fleischman and Kelsey Pukelis

Medicaid and Mortality: New Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data

by Sarah Miller, Norman Johnson, and Laura R. Wherry

Presenters: Grace McCormack and Frina Lin

Racial Disparities in the Health Effects from Air Pollution: Evidence from Ports

by Kenneth Gillingham and Pei Huang

Presenters: Lucas Do and Yibo Sun

The Great Unequalizer: Initial Health Effects of COVID-19 in the United States

by Marcella Alsan, Amitabh Chandra, and Kosali Simon

Presenters: Victoria Angelova and Sam Burn