Amitabh Chandra

Professor of Public Policy
Interfaculty Initiative in Health Policy
Office Address
Taubman-344
Mailing Address
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Mailbox 26
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact
Phone: 617-496-7356
Fax: 617-496-1722
Email: Amitabh_Chandra@harvard.edu
Assistant
Brittany Hill (617-496-7374)
Amitabh Chandra

Profile

 Amitabh Chandra is an economist, a Professor of Public Policy and Director of Health Policy Research at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where he also Director of PhD Admissions and Area Chair for Social and Urban Policy. He is a member of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) Panel of Health Advisors, and is a Research Associate at the IZA Institute in Bonn, Germany and at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). His research focuses on productivity and cost-growth in healthcare, medical malpractice, and racial disparities in healthcare. His research has been supported by the National Institute of Aging, the National Institute of Child Health and Development, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and has been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Health Affairs. He is an editor of the Review of Economics and Statistics, a former editor of the Journal of Human Resources, and serves on the editorial boards of Economics Letters and the American Economic Journal.
Chandra has testified to the United States Senate and the United States Commission on Civil Rights. His research has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, Newsweek, and on National Public Radio. He has been a consultant to the RAND Corporation, Microsoft Research, the Institute of Medicine and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts. In 2011 he served as Massachusetts' Special Commissioner on Provider Price Reform.
Professor Chandra is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, the first-prize recipient of the Upjohn Institute's Dissertation Award, the Kenneth Arrow Award for best paper in health economics, and the Eugene Garfield Award for the impact of medical research. In 2012, he was awarded American Society of Health Economists (ASHE) medal. The ASHE Medal is awarded biennially to the economist age 40 or under who has made the most significant contributions to the field of health economics.

Courses

Spring

  • SUP-951 Doctoral Seminar in the Economics of Health and Medical Care
  • API-202-A Empirical Methods II
  • SUP-922 Proseminar on Inequality and Social Policy II

Media Expertise

Amitabh Chandra welcomes media inquiries on the following subjects:

Additional experts may be found by clicking on each subject listed. You may contact faculty directly or if you need assistance contact the Communications Office at 617-495-1115.

Research

For a complete list of faculty citations from 2001 - present, please visit the Harvard Kennedy School Research Report Online.

Selected Publication Citations:

  • Academic Journal/Scholarly Articles
    • Seabury, Seth A., Anupam B. Jena, and Amitabh Chandra. "Trends in the Earnings of Health Care Professionals in the United States, 1987-2010." Journal of the American Medical Association 308.20 (2012): 2083-2085.
    • Baicker, Katherine, and Amitabh Chandra. "The Health Care Jobs Fallacy." New England Journal of Medicine 366.26 (June 28, 2012): 2433-2435.
    • Jena, Anupam B., Amitabh Chandra, Darius Lakdawalla, and Seth Seabury. "Outcomes of Medical Malpractice Litigation Against US Physicians." Archives of Internal Medicine 172.11 (June 2012): 892-889.
    • Baicker, Katherine, Amitabh Chandra, and Jonathan S. Skinner. "Saving Money or Just Saving Lives? Improving the Productivity of US Health Care Spending." Annual Review of Economics 4 (2012): 12.1-12.24.
    • Chen, Christopher, Gabriel Scheffler, and Amitabh Chandra. "Massachusetts' Health Care Reform and Emergency Department Utilization." New England Journal of Medicine 365.12 (September 22, 2011).
    • Jena, Anupam B., Seth Seabury, Darius Lakdawalla, and Amitabh Chandra. "Malpractice Risk According to Physician Specialty." New England Journal of Medicine 365.7 (August 2011): 629-636.
    • Hanson, Jamie L., Amitabh Chandra, Barbara L. Wolfe, and Seth D. Pollak. "Association between Income and the Hippocampus." PLoS ONE 6.5 (May 2011): e18712.
    • Chandra, Amitabh, Anupam B. Jena, and Jonathan S. Skinner. "The Pragmatist’s Guide to Comparative Effectiveness Research." Journal of Economic Perspectives 25.2 (Spring 2011): 27–46.
    • Chandra, Amitabh, Jonathan Gruber, and Robin McKnight. "The Importance of the Individual Mandate — Evidence from Massachusetts." New England Journal of Medicine 364.4 (January 2011): 293-295.
    • Alhassani, Ali, Michael Chernew, Amitabh Chandra. "The Sources of the SGR “Hole”." New England Journal of Medicine 366.4 (January 26, 2011): 289-291.
    • Bynum, Julie P. W., Elliott S. Fisher, Yunjie Song, Jonathan Skinner, and Amitabh Chandra. "Measuring Racial Disparities in the Quality of Ambulatory Diabetes Care." Medical Care 48.12 (December 2010): 1057-1063.
    • Mello, Michelle M., Amitabh Chandra, Atul A. Gawande, and David M. Studdert. "National Costs Of The Medical Liability System." Health Affairs 29.9 (September 2010): 1569-1577.
    • Block, Jason P., Amitabh Chandra, Katherine D. McManus, and Walter C. Willett. "Point-of-Purchase Price and Education Intervention to Reduce Consumption of Sugary Soft Drinks." American Journal of Public Health 100.8 (August 2010): 1427-1433.
    • Chandra, Amitabh, Jonathan Gruber, and Robin McKnight. "Patient Cost Sharing in Low Income Populations." American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 100.2 (May 2010): 303-308.
    • Chandra, Amitabh, Jonathan Gruber, and and Robin McKnight. "Patient Cost-Sharing and Hospitalization Offsets in the Elderly." American Economic Review 100.1 (March 2010): 193-213.
    • Chernew, Michael E., Lindsay M. Sabik, Amitabh Chandra, Teresa B. Gibson, and Joseph P. Newhouse. "Geographic Correlation Between Large-Firm Commercial Spending and Medicare Spending." American Journal of Managed Care 16.2 (February 2010): 131-138.
    • Chernew, Michael E., Lindsay M. Sabik, Amitabh Chandra, and Joseph P. Newhouse. "Ensuring the Fiscal Sustainability of Health Care Reform." New England Journal of Medicine 362.1 (January 7, 2010): 1-3.
    • Baicker, Katherine, and Amitabh Chandra. "Uncomfortable Arithmetic — Whom to Cover versus What to Cover." New England Journal of Medicine 362.2 (December 16, 2009): 95-97.
    • Chernew, Michael E., Lindsay Sabik, Amitabh Chandra, and Joseph P. Newhouse. "Would Having More Primary Care Doctors Cut Health Spending Growth?" Health Affairs 28.5 (September/October 2009): 1327-1335.
    • Baicker, Katherine, and Amitabh Chandra. "A Trillion-Dollar Geography Lesson." Health Affairs 28.5 (September/October 2009): 1448-1451.
    • Yasaitis, Laura, Elliott S. Fisher, Jonathan S. Skinner, and Amitabh Chandra. "Hospital Quality And Intensity Of Spending: Is There An Association?" Health Affairs 28.4 (July-August 2009): 566-572.
    • Chandra, Amitabh. "Who You Are and Where You Live: Race and the Geography of Healthcare." Medical Care 47.2 (February 2009): 135-137.
    • Baicker, Katherine, and Amitabh Chandra. "Myths and Misconceptions about Health Insurance." Health Affairs 27.6 (September/October 2008).
    • Landrum, Mary Beth, Ellen R. Meara, Amitabh Chandra, Edward Guadagnoli, and Nancy L. Keating. "Is Spending More Always Wasteful? The Appropriateness of Care and Outcomes Among Colorectal Cancer Patients." Health Affairs 27.1 (January/February 2008): 159-168.
    • Baicker, Katherine, Elliott S. Fisher, and Amitabh Chandra. "Malpractice Liability Costs and the Practice of Medicine in the Medicare Program." Health Affairs 26.3 (May/June 2007): 841-852.
    • Jha, Ashish K., Douglas O. Staiger, Lee Lucas, and Amitabh Chandra. "Do Race-Specific Models Explain Disparities in Treatments after Acute Myocardial Infarction?" American Heart Journal 153.5 (May 2007): 785-791.
    • Chandra, Amitabh, and Douglas O. Staiger. "Productivity Spillovers in Health Care: Evidence from the Treatment of Heart Attacks." Journal of Political Economy 115.1 (February 2007): 103-140.
    • Baicker, Katherine, Kasey S. Buckles, and Amitabh Chandra. "Geographic Variation in the Appropriate Use of Cesarean Delivery." Heath Affairs Web Exclusive 25.5 (Sep./Oct. 2006): w355-w367.
    • Baicker, Katherine and Amitabh Chandra. "The Labor Market Effects of Rising Health Insurance Premiums." Journal of Labor Economics 24.3 (July 2006): 609-634.
    • Chandra, Amitabh. "The Metrics of the Physician Brain Drain." New England Journal of Medicine 354.5 (February 2, 2006): 529-530.
    • Skinner, Jonathan, Amitabh Chandra, Douglas Staiger, Julie Lee, and Mark McClellan. "Mortality After Acute Myocardial Infarction in Hospitals That Disproportionately Treat Black Patients." Circulation 112.17 (October 2005): 2634-2641.
    • Baicker, Katherine, and Amitabh Chandra. "Defensive Medicine and Disappearing Doctors?" Regulation 28.3 (Fall 2005): 24-31.
    • Bollinger, Christopher R., and Amitabh Chandra. "Iatrogenic Specification Error: A Cautionary Tale of Cleaning Data." Journal of Labor Economics 23.2 (April 2005): 235-257.
    • Barnato, Amber E., F. Lee Lucas, Douglas Staiger, David E. Wennberg, and Amitabh Chandra. "Hospital-Level Racial Disparities in Acute Myocardial Infarction Treatment and Outcomes." Medical Care 43.4 (April 2005): 308-319.
    • Chandra, Amitabh, Shantanu Nundy, and Seth A. Seabury. "The Growth Of Physician Medical Malpractice Payments: Evidence From The National Practitioner Data Bank." Health Affairs Web Exclusive 24 (Jan./Jun. 2005): 240-249.
    • Baicker, Katherine, Amitabh Chandra, and Jonathan S. Skinner. "Geographic Variation in Health Care and the Problem of Measuring Racial Disparities." Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 48.1 (Supplement) (2005): S42-S53.
  • Commentary
    • Mello, Michelle, and Amitabh Chandra. "The Cap Doesn’t Fit." New York Times, July 11, 2009.
  • Public Testimony
    • Chandra, Amitabh. Testimony to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, June 12, 2009.
    • Chandra, Amitabh. Testimony to the United States Senate Finance Committee, Hearing on Health Care Reform, November 19, 2008.
  • Reviews
    • Chandra, Amitabh, and Tom S. Vogl. "Rising Up With Shoe Leather?" Comment on Fair Society, Healthy Lives (The Marmot Review), Social Science & Medicine, 71.7, October 2010: 1227-1230.