ECO 739SEM - Health Economics

Rather than a broad and shallow survey of the field of health economics, which is massive, we will go in depth into a more narrow set of topics. The main theme of the course will be insurance. While much of the course will focus on health insurance in the U.S., other related forms of insurance, such as life insurance and annuities, will also be examined. Moreover, we will conceive of insurance very broadly, including public (social) and private insurance, self-insurance, and intra-household insurance. We will also examine how access to insurance interacts with other household decisions, including labor supply and savings. Because research on insurance overlaps with many other areas of applied microeconomics, especially public economics, labor, and industrial organization, I hope this course will appeal to a broad range of students.

Credits: 3