Pauly, Mark V.

Mark V. Pauly is one of America's leading health economists. Although Pauly has conducted research in many areas of health economics, he is perhaps best known for his work on moral hazard. His classic 1968 study of the economics of moral hazard was the first to point out how health insurance may affect the behavior of the insured as well as those providing healthcare services to them. His work popularized the term.

Pauly is currently the Bendheim Professor in the Department of Health Care Systems at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also is professor of business and public policy and insurance and risk management at the Wharton School and professor of economics in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining the Wharton School in 1983, he taught at Northwestern University for 16 years.

Born in 1941, Pauly earned a bachelor of arts degree in classical languages from Xavier University in 1963, a master's degree in economics from the University of Delaware in 1965, and a doctorate in economics from the University of Virginia in 1967.

Over his long career, Pauly has studied the empirical and theoretical impact of health insurance coverage on preventive care, ambulatory care, and prescription drug use in managed care. He has investigated the various influences that determine the availability of health insurance coverage and, using cost-effectiveness analysis, determined the influences of medical care and health practices on outcomes and costs. He also has studied and proposed ways to reduce the number of uninsured through the use of tax credits and ways to redesign the Medicare program.

Pauly is a prolific researcher and author. He has published many scholarly journal articles and books on various health economics topics. He is the coeditor-in-chief of the International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics and the associate editor of the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty. He also serves on the editorial board of Public Finance Quarterly.

Pauly has received many awards and honors in recognition of his work. In 2007, he received the Distinguished Investigator Award from AcademyHealth and the John Eisenberg Excellence in Mentorship Award from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (IOM). He also is a member of the National Advisory Council for the AHRQ. He was the recipient of an investigator award in health policy research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. And he previously served as a commissioner on the Physician Payment Review Commission (PPRC), which advised the U.S. Congress on Medicare physician payment.

He has consulted for national public policy and research centers such as the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), Mathematica Policy Research, and the Urban Institute; hospital associations, including the Greater New York Hospital Association; and pharmaceutical companies such as Amgen, Bayer, Glaxo, and Merck.

Pauly's current interests include the economic analysis of healthcare reform, the understanding of the conceptual foundations for cost-benefit analysis of pharmaceutical drugs, and the economic incentives in managed care. His work will continue to assist health services researchers and policymakers to better understand the economics of healthcare in America.

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