Amy Nadya Finkelstein (born November 2, 1973) is a professor of

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

(MIT), the co-director and research associate of the Public Economics Program at the

National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...

, and the co-Scientific Director of J-PAL North America. She was awarded the 2012

John Bates Clark Medal The John Bates Clark Medal is awarded by the American Economic Association to "that American economist under the age of forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge." The award is named after the ...

for her contributions to economics. She was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

and won a MacArthur "Genius" fellowship in 2018.

Education

Finkelstein studied government at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

, where she was a

Truman Scholar The Harry S. Truman Scholarship is the premier graduate fellowship in the United States for public service leadership. It is a federally funded scholarship granted to U.S. undergraduate students for demonstrated leadership potential, academic ...

and received an AB

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

in 1995. At Harvard, her interest in economics was inspired in part by taking economist Lawrence Katz's course "Social Problems in the American Economy". She was a

Marshall Scholar The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious ...

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, where she received an

M.Phil. The Master of Philosophy (MPhil; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. In the United States, an MPhil typically includes a taught portion and a significant research portion, during which a thesis project is conducted under supervision. An MPhil ...

in 1997. She received her

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

in economics from MIT in 2001 under supervision of

James M. Poterba James Michael "Jim" Poterba, FBA (born July 13, 1958) is an American economist, Mitsui Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and current NBER president and chief executive officer. Early years Poterba was born in N ...

and Jonathan Gruber.Finkelstein, Amy (2001),
Adverse selection and government intervention in life and health insurance markets
'. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Career

Finkelstein was a Junior Fellow at the

Harvard Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

for three years, after which she joined the MIT faculty in 2005 and received tenure within three years. In 2016, MIT's School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences named Finkelstein the John and Jennie S. MacDonald Professor for a five-year term. The professorship was established with a gift by Edmund MacDonald, and recognizes Finkelstein's outstanding achievements in the field of economics.

Research

Finkelstein's primary expertise is in

public finance Public finance is the study of the role of the government in the economy. It is the branch of economics that assesses the government revenue and government expenditure of the public authorities and the adjustment of one or the other to achiev ...

and

health economics Health economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to efficiency, effectiveness, value and behavior in the production and consumption of health and healthcare. Health economics is important in determining how to improv ...

, focusing particularly on

health insurance Health insurance or medical insurance (also known as medical aid in South Africa) is a type of insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses. As with other types of insurance, risk is shared among m ...

. She conducts research into

market failure In neoclassical economics, market failure is a situation in which the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not Pareto efficient, often leading to a net loss of economic value. Market failures can be viewed as scenarios where indiv ...

s and

government intervention Economic interventionism, sometimes also called state interventionism, is an economic policy position favouring government intervention in the market process with the intention of correcting market failures and promoting the general welfare of ...

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

markets, and the impact of

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public ...

on health care and health insurance. Together with Katherine Baicker, she is one of two principal investigators of the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, a randomized evaluation of the impact of expanding Medicaid to low-income adults. Her research has shown that newly enrolled Medicaid patients make more trips overall to providers after acquiring insurance, make more visits to emergency rooms, and benefit financially from having insurance, among other findings. Finkelstein said that the body of research, including her work on the effects of the 2008 Medicaid expansion in Oregon, have made her confident that health insurance improves health.

Awards

In 2008, Finkelstein was awarded the

Elaine Bennett Research Prize The Elaine Bennett Research Prize, awarded every other year by the American Economic Association, "recognizes and honors outstanding research in any field of economics by a woman not more than seven years beyond her Ph.D." First awarded in 1998, ...

by the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP), for her contributions to the economics profession. In 2012, she was awarded the

from the

American Economic Association The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals acknowledged in business and academia. There are some 23,000 members. History and Constitution The AEA was esta ...

. The award cited her research as "a model of how theory and empirics can be combined in creative ways". In 2018, Finkelstein received a MacArthur "Genius" Grant.

Personal life

Finkelstein is married to MIT economist

Benjamin Olken Benjamin A. Olken (born April 1975) is an American economist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Olken is one of the directors of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a research centre specializing on ...

Select publications

* * * *

References

External links

MIT Department of Economics: Amy Finkelstein

NBER: Amy Finkelstein

Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL): Amy Finkelstein
{{DEFAULTSORT:Finkelstein, Amy 1973 births Alumni of the University of Oxford 21st-century American economists 20th-century American Jews American women economists Health economists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard College alumni Living people MacArthur Fellows Marshall Scholars MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty Fellows of the Econometric Society Members of the National Academy of Medicine 21st-century American Jews 20th-century American women 21st-century American women