The Economics of Health

Professor David Cutler

Why are there more MRI machines in Massachusetts than in all of Canada? Why is healthy food getting more expensive faster than processed food? Why does our medical system prioritize providing treatments over improving health outcomes?

Our guest this week answers all of these and more, and he's among the most qualified people in the world to take on these questions.

Dr. David Cutler is an American economist who is the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University. He holds a joint appointment in the economics department and at Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard School of Public Health, is a faculty member for the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, and serves as commissioner on the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission.

Cutler graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with a degree in economics, and then joined the Harvard faculty after receiving his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991. He has served in the administration of two presidents.
His book Your Money or Your Life gives an introduction on the US health care system or you can find a discussion of it in the New York Times Magazine article, "The Quality Cure" Cutler's 2003 study "Why have Americans become more obese?" discusses rising obesity as an outcome of the revolution in mass food packaging.

You can find links to his peer reviewed publications here

You can find links to much of his editorial work here