
Joseph P. Newhouse, PhD
Bio
Joseph P. Newhouse, PhD, is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard University, Director of the Division of Health Policy Research and Education, and Director of the Interfaculty Initiative in Health Policy. He is a member of the faculties of the Harvard Kennedy School, the Harvard Medical School, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, as well as a Faculty Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He received B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from Harvard University and an honorary doctoral degree from the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Following his Bachelors degree, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany. Dr. Newhouse spent the first twenty years of his career at RAND, where he designed and directed the RAND Health Insurance Experiment. From 1981 to 1985 he was Head of the RAND Economics Department.
In 1981 he became the founding editor of the Journal of Health Economics, which he edited for 30 years. He is a member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Health Economics and a past member of the editorial boards of the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Economic Perspectives. In 1977 he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) and has served two terms on its governing Council. In 1995 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a past President of the Association for Health Services Research (AHSR), now AcademyHealth, of the International Health Economics Association, and was the inaugural President of the American Society of Health Economists. He is a member of the Comptroller General’s Advisory Committee. He has served as the vice-chair of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which reviews Medicare payment policy and makes recommendations to the Congress. This Commission resulted from the 1997 merger of two predecessor commissions, the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission and Physician Payment Review Commission. Newhouse chaired the former and served as a Commissioner on the latter. From 2007-2012 he served on the CBO Board of Health Advisers, from 2006-2012 on the Committee on National Statistics, from 2004-2012 on the Science, Technology, and Economic Policy board of the National Research Council, and from 1999-2003 as a regent of the National Library of Medicine. He is a director for the National Committee for Quality Assurance and was a director of Aetna from 2001-2018 and Abt Associates from 2001-2016.
In 2014 he won the Victor R. Fuchs Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Health Economists. He was the first recipient of the David N. Kershaw Award and Prize of the Association for Public Policy and Management in 1983, which honors persons under 40 who have made a distinguished contribution to the field of public policy analysis and management. In 1988 he received the Baxter Health Services Research Prize for an unusually significant contribution to the improved medical care of the public through innovative health services research, as well as the Administrator’s Citation from the Health Care Financing Administration. He received AHSR’s Distinguished Investigator Award in 1992 and the Hans Sigrist Foundation Prize for distinguished scientific achievement in 1995, along with the American Risk and Insurance Association’s Elizur Wright Award for a contribution to the risk management and insurance literature for Free for All?. In 2000 he and his co-authors received the first Zvi Griliches award for Are Medical Prices Declining? In 2001 and again in 2013 he and his co-authors won the Kenneth J. Arrow Award for the best paper in health economics for How Does Managed Care Do It? and The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment; the latter also won the 2013 HSR Impact Award from AcademyHealth. In 2003 he won the Paul A. Samuelson Certificate of Excellence from TIAA-CREF for Pricing the Priceless. In 2009 he won the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award from the Harvard Graduate School.
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Honors & Awards
Honorary Degree of Doctor of Public Policy, Pardee RAND Graduate School, 2016
Kenneth J. Arrow Award for the best article in health economics published in 2012 (for “The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year”), 2013 (shared with seven co-authors)
AcademyHealth Health Services Research Impact Award, 2013 for an article published in 2012 that had a significant impact on health or health care (for “The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year”) (shared with seven co-authors)
Finalist for article of the year, National Institute of Health Care Management, 2010 (one of 5 papers selected), for “The Impact of the Medicare Part D Drug Benefit on Pharmacy and Medical Care Spending” and also in 2013 for “The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment”)
John Eisenberg Legacy Lecture, organized by the Philip R. Lee Institute of Health Policy Studies at UCSF, the Center for Health Policy/Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research at Stanford University, and the Center for Health Research at the School of Public Health, UC Berkeley, May 17, 2010
Adam Yarmolinsky Award, from the Institute of Medicine to recognize distinguished service by a member who, over a significant period of time, has contributed in multiple ways to the IOM’s mission, 2009
Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2009
Article-of-the-Year Award, 2007, AcademyHealth; International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (for “Medicare Drug Benefit Caps: Unintended Consequences”)
Harriet Elliott Lecture, “Long-Term Financing of Medicare,” University of North Carolina - Greensboro, April 18, 2005
ISI Highly Cited Researcher. From ISIHighlyCited.com. Being acknowledged by Thomson Reuters as a Highly Cited Researcher means that an individual is among the 250 most-cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories in life sciences, medicine, physical sciences, engineering and social sciences. These individuals are the most highly cited within each category, and comprise less than one-half of one percent of all publishing researchers
Inaugural President, American Society of Health Economists, 2004-2006
Paul A. Samuleson Certificate of Excellence from TIAA-CREF, 2003 (for Pricing the Priceless) (http://www.tiaa-crefinstitute.org/Awards/2003cert.htm)
Ranked 133rd among 54,000 living economists, 2003; see (http://student.ulb.ac.be/~tcoupe/update/top1000c.pdf)
Invited plenary lecture, “Reimbursing for Health Care Services,” Journées d’Économie Publique in honor of Louis Andre Gerard Varet, Marseilles, 2003
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2002
Albert P. Williams Memorial Lecture, RAND, October, 2001 (first lecturer)
Kenneth J. Arrow Award for the best article in health economics published in 2000 (for “How Does Managed Care Do It?”), 2001 (shared with two co-authors).
Distinguished Speaker, 39th Economics Winter Institute, St. Cloud State University, February, 2001
Chung Hua Lecturer, Academia Sinica, Republic of China, December 2000
Commencement Speaker, University of Lausanne Health Policy Program, May 2000
Zvi Griliches Award, for the best empirical article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in the past four years (for “Are Medical Prices Declining?”), 2000 (shared with three co-authors)
Society of General Internal Medicine, runner-up award for article of the year, 1999 (for “Costs of Medical Injuries in Utah and Colorado in 1992,” shared with six co-authors)
Massachusetts Health Data Consortium’s Investing in Information Award, for the Massachusetts Health Quality Partnership’s Statewide Patient Survey Project, 1999. Also the Quigley Innovation award for the same project, 1999
Distinguished speaker, 25th anniversary meeting of the Spanish Health Economics Association (Asociacion de Economia de la Salud), Vitoria, Spain, May, 1998
Walras-Pareto Lecturer, University of Lausanne, November, 1997
Distinguished speaker, 10th anniversary meeting of the Portugese Health Economics Association, Evora, Portugal, October, 1997
Keynote speaker, 25th anniversary meeting of the Health Economics Study Group; York, England, 1997
Elected Member-at-large, Section Committee on the Social, Economic, and Political Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1997-2001
Cornelson Distinguished Lecturer in Economics, Davidson College, March 1996
George Zuidema Lecturer, University of Michigan, March 1996
President, International Health Economics Association, 1996-1998
Alex G. McKenna Lecturer, Center for Economic and Policy Education, St. Vincent’s College, November 1995
American Economics Association, Representative to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1995-2000
Association for Health Services Research, Article-of-the-Year, Honorable Mention, 1995 (for “Does More Intensive Treatment of Acute Myocardial Infarction Reduce Mortality?” shared with two co-authors)
Elizur Wright Award from the American Insurance and Risk Association for Free for All? Lessons from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, 1995
Hans Sigrist Foundation Prize, for distinguished scientific achievement, Bern, Switzerland, 1995
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected 1995
Academic Geriatric Research Center Distinguished Professor for 1994-1995, University of California, Los Angeles, January 1995
Distinguished Fellow of the Association of Health Services Research (initial group of fellows, 1995)
Carl Taube Memorial Lecturer, National Institute of Mental Health, 1994
President, Association of Health Services Research, 1993-1994 (Board of Directors, 1991-1999)
Distinguished Investigator Award, Association for Health Services Research, 1992
Elected to the Governing Council of the Institute of Medicine, 1991-1994 and 1994-1997 (Executive Committee, 1993-1997; National Academy of Sciences Finance Committee, 1993- 1997)
Keynote speaker, First National Health Summit, Sydney, Australia, 1991
Keynote speaker, Second World Congress on Health Economics, Zurich, 1990
Association for Health Services Research Article-of-the-Year Award, 1989 (for “The Taxes of Sin: Do Smokers and Drinkers Pay their Way?” shared with four co-authors)
The Health Care Financing Administrator’s Citation, 1988, the Agency’s highest award to an individual who has made a significant contribution to its operations
The Baxter Health Services Research Prize, 1988, for an unusually significant contribution to the improved medical care of the public through innovative health services research
Sierra Foundation Distinguished Lecturer, University of Southern California, 1986 (first lecturer)
Who’s Who in Economics, 1st edition (the 640 most cited living economists from 1970‑1980); 2nd edition (the 1,280 most cited living economists from 1972‑1982); 3rd edition (the 1,000 most cited living economists from 1982-1992); 4th edition (the 1,000 most cited living economists from 1990-2000).
Who’s Who in America
The David N. Kershaw Award and Prize of the Association of Public Policy and Management, 1983, for a distinguished contribution to the field of public policy and management made while under 40 (first recipient)
Keynote speaker, First World Congress on Health Economics, Leiden, 1980
Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, elected 1977
National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, 1964-1966
Woodrow Wilson Honorary Scholar, 1964-1968
Fulbright Scholar, 1963-1964
Phi Beta Kappa
Alfred P. Sloan National Scholar (Harvard College)
BMC Health Services Research
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Annals of Internal Medicine
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New England Journal of Medicine
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Annals of Internal Medicine
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Health Affairs
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