Harkness Project: Affordability and Means-Tested Models in Health Care Markets
Placement: Harvard Medical School
Mentor: Joseph P. Newhouse, Ph.D., John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management, Harvard Medical School
Biography at time of Harkness Fellowship: Simona Grassi, Ph.D., M.Sc., a 2012-13 Swiss Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice, has been an assistant professor of health economics at the Institut d’Économie et Management de la Santé (IEMS) at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland since 2009. Prior to her appointment at the University of Lausanne, Grassi was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Italy and a Fulbright Fellow at the department of economics at Boston University, where she analyzed the interaction between public and private providers of health care and the impact of asymmetric information on ability and willingness to pay for care. Grassi has published peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the Journal of Health Economics and the Journal of Public Economic Theory. Grassi received her master’s degree of science in public economics and her Ph.D. in economics from the University of York in the United Kingdom, and also holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Università Statale di Milano in Italy.
Current Project Abstract: Grassi's Harkness project will look at the dynamic relationship between the public and private sector, exploring how the public sector addresses the problem of affordability through subsidies and regulation and how private insurers react to the increase in consumers’ ability to pay. The study will compare how public subsidies and market competition work as a combined strategy for expanding coverage in the United States and in Switzerland.
Career Activity since Fellowship:- Assistant Professor of Health Economics, University of Lausanne
- Lecturer in Economics, Kings College London
Current Positions: (updated 04/2017)
- Lecturer in Economics, Kings College London
Email: [email protected]