The Initiative on Enabling Choice and Competition in Healthcare

The Economics of Buyers Clubs

Presented by Professor Casey Mulligan at the Supply-side Economics in Healthcare 2024 ECCHC Conference

The Impact of AI on Healthcare Supply: Perspective from Industry and the Implied Research Agenda

Presented by Professor Tomas J. Philipson at the Supply-side Economics in Healthcare 2024 ECCHC Conference

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

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...

The Employer Penalty, Voluntary Compliance, and the Size Distribution of Firms: Evidence from a Survey of Small Businesses

by susuguo | Nov 1, 2017 | White Papers

A new survey of 745 small businesses shows little change in the size dis- tribution of businesses between 2012 and 2016, except among businesses with 40–74 employees, in a way that is closely related to whether they of- fer health insurance coverage. Using measures of...

The Upside-down Economics of Regulated and Otherwise Rigid Prices

by susuguo | Jun 1, 2016 | White Papers

A hedonic model featuring quality-quantity tradeoffs reveals a number of surprising market behaviors that can result from price regulations that are imposed on competitive markets for products that have adjustable non-price attributes. Quality need not clear a...

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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!