Mark V. Pauly, PhD is Bendheim Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Health Care Management and Business and Public Policy at The Wharton School and Professor of Economics in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
One of the nation’s leading health economists, Dr. Pauly has made significant contributions to the fields of medical economics and health insurance. His classic study on the economics of moral hazard was the first to point out how health insurance coverage may affect patients’ use of medical services.Subsequent work, both theoretical and empirical, has explored the impact of conventional insurance coverage on preventive care, on outpatient care, and on prescription drug use in managed care. In addition, he has explored the influences that determine whether insurance coverage is available and, through several cost-effectiveness studies, the influence of medical care and health practices on health outcomes and cost. His interests in health policy deal with ways to reduce the number of uninsured through tax credits for public and private insurance and appropriate design for Medicare in a budget-constrained environment. Most recently, he has examined the topics of national health care reform, the individual insurance market, the effects of poor health on worker productivity, and the market for voluntary health insurance in developing countries. He is currently studying how insurance affects the rate of growth of medical spending.
Dr. Pauly is a former commissioner on the Physician Payment Review Commission, a consultant to the Congressional Budget Office and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and a member of the Medicare Technical Advisory Panel. Dr. Pauly was recently President of the American Society of Health Economists. He received The John M. Eisenberg Excellence in Mentorship Award from AHRQ in 2007, the William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research in 2012, and the Victor Fuchs Award from ASHecon. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine) in 1987.
