Ben Handel is an expert on industrial organization, healthcare economics, and information economics. In his academic research, Professor Handel focuses on consumer choice, decision-making, and market structure in the healthcare and health insurance industries. He has evaluated issues related to adverse selection; competition between insurance providers; provider productivity; the adoption of information technology tools, including artificial intelligence (AI); demand for digital services; and the role of behavioral economics in explaining insurance plan choice.
Professor Handel has provided expert testimony in deposition and at trial. In United States et al. v. UnitedHealth Group Incorporated et al., he explained the types of information contained in healthcare claims data and demonstrated how a variety of analytical techniques—from foundational (summary statistics, simple regression) to advanced (machine learning, AI)—could be used to derive important insights about competition.
In his recent research involving health insurance markets, Professor Handel has examined how consumer choice frictions, such as inertia and limited information, can affect the welfare outcomes of different regulatory policies. In studying topics related to healthcare providers, he has assessed incentive design, information technology adoption, provider fatigue, and interventions to improve consumer healthcare behaviors.
Professor Handel is a recipient of the ASHEcon Medal, which the American Society of Health Economists awards every two years to the economist age 40 and under who has made the most significant contributions to the field of health economics. The Econometric Society honored him with the Frisch Medal. In 2015, he received an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in economics, in recognition of distinguished performance and unique potential to contribute to his field. He is also the recipient of a five-year NSF CAREER award for research into the determinants of health provider productivity.
Professor Handel has published articles in leading academic journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Industrial Organization, and Marketing Science. He serves as associate editor for Econometrica, the Journal of Political Economy, and the RAND Journal of Economics and is on the board of editors for the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. Mainstream media such as CBS Moneyline, Forbes, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal have covered his research.
Professor Handel directs the Gilbert Center at the University of California, Berkeley, which fosters research related to the economics of industrial organization and healthcare markets. In addition, he codirects the Insurance Working Group at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), where he serves as a research associate for industrial organization, healthcare, and public economics.
At Berkeley, Professor Handel has taught courses in industrial organization and health economics for over a decade. He has received awards for distinguished teaching and university service.
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