Recent Job Market Papers

Module 6 shifts from topical literature reviews to a close reading of recent job market papers by newly placed health economists. The goal is twofold. First, these papers represent the current frontier of the field and showcase the kinds of questions, methods, and data that define health economics research today. Second, reading JMPs is one of the best ways to learn what a successful research contribution looks like at the dissertation stage, including how to frame a question, build an empirical strategy, and position a paper relative to existing work.

The six papers span a range of topics we have encountered throughout the semester, including insurance market design, physician and hospital market structure, administrative costs, and public insurance rationing. Each paper was written by a recent PhD graduate who has since been placed at a leading department or school. Over three class sessions, we will discuss two papers per day, focusing on both the substantive contributions and the craft of the papers themselves.