Amanda Kowalski
Amanda Kowalski, the Gail Wilensky Professor of Applied Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan Department of Economics, is a health economist who specializes in bringing together experiments, models grounded in context-specific knowledge, and econometric techniques to answer questions that inform current debates in health policy.
Professor Kowalski’s recent research analyzes experiments and clinical trials with the goal of designing policies to target insurance expansions and medical treatments to individuals who will benefit from them most. Her previous research has explored impacts of health insurance through Medicaid expansions, the Affordable Care Act, the Massachusetts health reform of 2006, and employer-sponsored plans. She has also examined impacts of health spending on at-risk newborns.
Professor Kowalski is the 2019 recipient of the ASHEcon Medal, awarded by the American Society of Health Economists (ASHEcon) to “an economist aged 40 or under who has made the most significant contributions to the field of health economics.” She has also been honored with a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, the Zellner Thesis Award in Econometrics and Statistics from the American Statistical Association, and the Arthur Greer Memorial Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication or Research from Yale University. Her research has received the HCUP Outstanding Article of the Year Award, the Willard G. Manning Memorial Award for the Best Research in Health Econometrics, the Garfield Economic Impact Award, and the National Institute of Health Care Management Research Award. The National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the W.E. Upjohn Institute have supported her research, which has been published in top general interest journals in economics, including the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Her research has also been featured in the popular press, including The New York Times, NPR, and The Wall Street Journal.
Professor Kowalski is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association (AEA) and of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Health Economists (ASHEcon). She is a Research Associate at the NBER in the Economics of Health, Public Economics, and Aging programs. She holds a 2008 PhD in economics from MIT and a 2003 AB in economics from Harvard.