The Initiative on Enabling Choice and Competition in Healthcare

The dominant theory in economics for centuries in the Western world has been the free market system, yet the ability of competitive markets to provide quality care has been a central point of recent debate. Extensive government regulation, though well-intentioned, adversely affects the overall health of Americans, inhibits medical innovation, and demands enormous tax-payer investment. The Initiative on Enabling Choice and Competition in Healthcare delivers cutting edge research on the efficiencies of competitiveness in the healthcare sector to demonstrate that free market forces can and do work to provide innovative, equitable, and high-quality care.

Our Vision

To be the leading university-based research center in free-market healthcare, promoting choice and competition to ensure greater access to existing care and new innovations.

Our Mission

To conduct evidence-based research and analyses on market-based choice and competition in the healthcare sector to lead to better-informed policy recommendations.

Working Papers

Deaths of Despair and the Incidence of Excess Mortality in 2020

by susuguo | Dec 1, 2020 | White Papers

Weekly mortality through October 3 is partitioned into normal deaths, COVID, and nonCOVID excess deaths (NCEDs). Before March, the excess is negative for the elderly, likely due to the mild flu season. From March onward, excess deaths are approximately 250,000 of...

Prices and Federal Policies in Opioid Markets

by susuguo | Feb 1, 2020 | Journal, White Papers

Consumer theory is extended to incorporate deviations from the law of one price that are common in markets for prescription and illicitly-manufactured opioids. The extension helps to resolve “puzzling” findings in the literature, such as race and age gaps in mortality...

Wedges, Labor Market Behavior, and Health Insurance Coverage Under the Affordable Care Act

by susuguo | Mar 1, 2018 | White Papers

The Affordable Care Act’s taxes, subsidies, and regulations significantly alter terms of trade in both goods and factor markets. We use an extended version of the clas-sic Harberger model to predict and quantify consequences of the Affordable Care Act for the...

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How Chicago Economics is Helping End a Pandemic: Enabling Choice and Competition in Healthcare

Operation Warp Speed is a historic milestone for economic research on medical innovation that occurred over decades on the University of Chicago campus. Chicago’s research results, traditions, and emphasis were brought to the federal government in 2017 by several of its faculty and alumni. In the three years before COVID-19 came to the United States, that economic team showed the President of the United States how federal policy reforms were delivering real value to consumers by encouraging innovation in healthcare industries.

Read the full paper here.

Learn more about Operation Warp Speed:

In the Press

Tomas Philipson: By avoiding funding Alzheimer’s research, the government is cutting seniors’ life spans | The Chicago Tribune | 05/18/2023

by susuguo | May 18, 2023

By Tomas J. Philipson Millions of patients and their caregivers breathed a collective sigh of relief when drugmaker Eli Lilly recently announced its...

Beyond Pigou: externalities and civil society in the supply–demand framework | May 2023

by susuguo | May 2, 2023

The extent of voluntary cooperation in the presence of externalities is shown as an equilib- rium outcome in the supply and demand framework. The...

No, Lockdown States Did Not Do Better | National Review | 04/19/2023

by susuguo | Apr 19, 2023

By Joel Zinberg & Casey B. Mulligan Many politicians, public-health figures, and media pundits continue to insist that the Covid lockdowns were...

2024 ECCHC Supply-Side Economics in Healthcare Conference – Watch Now!

The 2024 ECCHC Supply-side Economics in Healthcare Conference convened both in-person and virtually on Friday, May 3. Watch the full conference, or individual presentations and learn more about the conference here!