Economics of Health Care Markets

Catalog description

This course will review and enhance existing knowledge of health care delivery and related policy issues, using the lens and tools of microeconomics. The topics covered will span consumer behavior, sources and markets for health insurance, provider markets, provider incentives and regulation, as well as market consolidation across a variety of key industries (e.g., physicians, hospitals, and post-acute care providers). Importantly, a key differentiator as well as pedagogical feature of the course will be extensive exposure to classic and contemporary empirical (i.e., data-driven) research tied to these topics. This aspect allows students to be aware of and accumulate knowledge from the frontier of what is scientifically known about key and salient health economics and health policy topics. The selected academic studies incorporated into each lecture will reinforce the core economic theories and insights accompanying a given topic and demonstrate how existing theories can be formally tested as well as refined or expanded using strong empirical research designs. (MPA-ECONPL, MPA-PUBNON, MPA-SOCPOL)