Amy Finkelstein, who was born in 1973, is the Ford Professor of Economic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the co-Director of the Public Economics Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her research concentrates on public finance and health economics. She conducts research on market failures and public policies in health insurance markets.
Finkelstein received her AB summa cum laude in Government from Harvard University and an M.Phil. in Economics from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. She received her PhD in Economics from MIT. She has received numerous economic award and honor, including John Bates Clark Medal (2012), a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2009), the American Economic Association's Elaine Bennett Research Prize (2008), and a Sloan Research Fellowship (2007). She was awarded John Bates Clark Medal under the age of 40 in 2012. And the award commended her research as "a model of how theory and empirics can be combined in creative ways."
I never heard about this person when I was assigned my alias. I am surprised for her achievement at such young age. Since her research is focused on health insurance market, I don't think her work will be relevant to the major topics we discussed in this class. However, her research on asymmetric information in insurance market and welfare implications of models with asymmetric information may help us understand organization's decision making under similar condition.
Sources:
http://economics.mit.edu/faculty/afink/short
http://www.aeaweb.org/aea/AmyFinkelstein.pdf
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/04/27/mit-amy-finkelstein-wins-john-bates-clark-medal-economics/BNUhpRCqoSPNqgWXyDnb5J/story.html?camp=pm
Amy Finkelstein's Page in MIT Economics:
http://economics.mit.edu/faculty/afink/short
Truthfully, Finkelstein was chosen to be one of the aliases in the class because I had nobody else with last name starting with "F" and because she is a Clark Medal winner. As you note, the economics of health insurance is not a central part of our course. But it might be useful to note that among those who are fully employed hours worked per week seem to be on the increase over the last several years. Health insurance costs might help to explain that.
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