Weekly reading assignment:
Each week you will be asked to pick one reading from the weeks assignments and answer the following questions. Your responses should total one to two pages (600-1200 words) in length. Late homework assignments are accepted until Friday, May 3 at noon.
a) Who is the author? Do they have an interest in a particular outcome?
b) What is the point of the paper? Is there a question the paper is trying to answer?
c) What is the paper’s methodology? Is the paper theoretical, empirical, a meta-analysis, a case study, or something else?
d) What is the data of the paper? What set of information is the paper using to draw its conclusions? How generalizable is this information?
e) What is the paper’s conclusion? Are any robustness checks or sensitivity analyses used? Does this conclusion overlook anything; how would you criticize this conclusion?
f) What effect might this paper have on other papers, the field, or society? What additional questions might future researchers ask to build upon this paper?
Reading assignment 1: Due February 4
Complete the weekly reading assignment questions for one of this weeks readings:
• Fuchs, Victor R. “Economics, values, and health care reform.” American Economic Review 86, no. 1 (1996): 1-24.
• Deaton, Angus. “The great escape: A review of robert fogel’s the escape from hunger and premature death, 1700-2100.” Journal of Economic Literature 44, no. 1 (2006): 106-114.
• Cutler, David, and Grant Miller. “The role of public health improvements in health advances: the twentieth-century United States.” Demography 42, no. 1 (2005): 1-22.
Online lecture response assignment 1: Due February 4
Watch Angus Deaton – “The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality” at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs and answer the following questions (each question should be answered in one to four sentences
What were some of the examples of technical progress in health in the 18th century? vs progress in the 20th and 21st?
What is an explination of the increase in life experience in China increase of 15 years of LE in 10 years?
What explained South Africa’s relationship between their economy and health being an outlier in the 1960s? in the 2000s?
According to Deaton, what are less scary drivers of inequality? Why less scary?
According to Deaton, what are more scary drivers of inequality? Why more scary?
Deaton mentions Thomas Piketty, perhaps the most famous young economist today. If you are unfamiliar with Pikkety, you may want to watch this three minute primer. What is the relevance of Piketty to Deaton’s presentation?
What does the history of health in high income countries lead Deaton to conclude is the best policies for improving health in poor countries today?
Reading Assignment 2: Due February 11
Complete the weekly reading assignment questions for one of this weeks readings:
• Cutler, David M., and Richard J. Zeckhauser. “Adverse selection in health insurance.” In Forum for Health Economics & Policy, vol. 1, no. 1. De Gruyter, 1998.
• Heckman, James J. “The economics, technology, and neuroscience of human capability formation.” Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences 104, no. 33 (2007): 13250-13255.
• Nyman, John A. “Is ‘moral hazard’inefficient? The policy implications of a new theory.” Health Affairs 23, no. 5 (2004): 194-199.
Reading Assignment 3: Due February 18
Complete the weekly reading assignment questions for one of this weeks readings:
• Gruber, Jonathan. The role of consumer copayments for health care: lessons from the RAND health insurance experiment and beyond. Menlo Park, CA: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006.
• James, Julia. “The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, ” Health Affairs Health Policy Brief, July 16, 2015.
In addition, watch the video that is associated with the experiment you didn’t do the reading assignment for, either The RAND Health Insurance Experiment: A Retrospective at 40 Years or Friedman Forum with Amy Finkelstein: The Impact of Expanding Medicaid [Oregon Experiment]. What were the main results in common between the two experiments? Were there any major differences in the results between the two?
There is no additional online lecture response assignment for this week.
Reading Assignment 4: Due February 25
Complete the weekly reading assignment questions for this weeks reading:
• Ahuja, Amrita, Sarah Baird, Joan Hamory Hicks, Michael Kremer, and Edward Miguel. “Economics of Mass Deworming Programs.” DCP-3 Education (2018): 201.
Online lecture response assignment 2: Due March 4
Watch David Barker on Developmental Origins of Health and Disease and The Fetal Origins of Success: Douglas Almond at TEDxMiamiUniversity. Answer the following questions:
What is the fetal origins hypothesis and how did it come about?
What are three epidemiological crises from the past that are used as natural experiments to test the hypothesis?
How should people in public health respond to the hypothesis?
How should people in private health insurance respond to the hypothesis?
Reading Assignment 5: Due March 4
Complete the weekly reading assignment questions for one of this weeks readings (do not use the Almond et al reading for your reading assignment):
• Cutler, David, Angus Deaton, and Adriana Lleras-Muney. “The determinants of mortality.” Journal of economic perspectives 20, no. 3 (2006): 97-120.
• Cutler, David M., Edward L. Glaeser, and Jesse M. Shapiro. “Why have Americans become more obese?.” Journal of Economic perspectives 17, no. 3 (2003): 93-118
Reading Assignment 6: Due March 11
Complete the weekly reading assignment questions for one of this weeks readings:
• Viscusi, W. Kip. “The value of risks to life and health.” Journal of economic literature 31, no. 4 (1993): 1912-1946.
• Cutler, David M., and Mark McClellan. “Is technological change in medicine worth it?.” Health affairs 20, no. 5 (2001): 11-29.
• Skinner, Jonathan S., Douglas O. Staiger, and Elliott S. Fisher. “Is technological change in medicine always worth it? The case of acute myocardial infarction.” Health affairs 25, no. 2 (2006): w34-w47.
Reading Assignment 7: Due March 25
Complete the weekly reading assignment questions for this weeks reading:
• Berndt, Ernst R. “Pharmaceuticals in US health care: determinants of quantity and price.” Journal of Economic perspectives 16, no. 4 (2002): 45-66.
Reading Assignment 8: Due April 1
Complete the weekly reading assignment questions for one of this weeks readings:
• Rosenthal, Meredith B., and R. Adams Dudley. “Pay-for-performance: will the latest payment trend improve care?.” Jama 297, no. 7 (2007): 740-744.
• Jha, Ashish K., Karen E. Joynt, E. John Orav, and Arnold M. Epstein. “The long-term effect of premier pay for performance on patient outcomes.” New England Journal of Medicine 366, no. 17 (2012): 1606-1615.
Reading Assignment 9: Due April 8
Complete the weekly reading assignment questions for one of this weeks readings (there is no assignment associated with this weeks video):
• Pritchett, Lant, and Lawrence H. Summers. Wealthier is healthier. Vol. 1150. World Bank Publications, 1993.
• Mills, Anne. “Reflections on the development of health economics in low-and middle-income countries.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281, no. 1789 (2014): 20140451.
In class activity 1: Due April 15
Readings: Choose one or two available readings from day’s reading list at this link. If you choose a reading less than 6 pages in length, you must choose a second reading also less than 6 pages in length. If you choose a reading greater than 6 pages, do not write your name next to a second reading. Once you’ve chosen your reading, write your name under student 1 or student 2. If two other students have already chosen a reading, you must choose a different reading. There will be homework assignment associated with this reading as well.
Reading Assignment 10: Due April 15
Attend and participate in the discussion and complete the weekly reading assignment questions for the reading(s) you chose from the above list. In your response, think about how your paper presents evidence that would exclude other explanations. That is, in what way does the evidence of your paper not only imply that its conclusion is true, but that other conclusions might not be true.
Reading Assignment 11: Due April 22
Complete the weekly reading assignment questions for one of this weeks readings:
• Sommers, Benjamin D., Katherine Baicker, and Arnold M. Epstein. “Mortality and access to care among adults after state Medicaid expansions.” New England Journal of Medicine 367, no. 11 (2012): 1025-1034.
• Card, David, Carlos Dobkin, and Nicole Maestas. “Does Medicare save lives?.” The quarterly journal of economics 124, no. 2 (2009): 597-636.
Reading Assignment 12: Due April 29
Complete the weekly reading assignment questions for one of this weeks readings:
• Quadagno, Jill. “Why the United States has no national health insurance: Stakeholder mobilization against the welfare state, 1945-1996.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior (2004): 25-44.
• Obama, Barack. “United States health care reform: progress to date and next steps.” Jama 316, no. 5 (2016): 525-532.
• Courtemanche, Charles, James Marton, Benjamin Ukert, Aaron Yelowitz, and Daniela Zapata. “Early Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Health Care Access, Risky Health Behaviors, and Self‐Assessed Health.” Southern Economic Journal 84, no. 3 (2018): 660-691.