Benjamin Handel
is an associate professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 2010. He received his A.B. from Princeton and his Ph.D. from Northwestern. Handel is a co-director of the Gilbert Center for industrial organization research at Berkeley, a co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research Insurance Working Group and a co-director of the UC Berkeley Opportunity Lab. He is an expert on health care economics and industrial organization and has worked with numerous businesses and policymakers in this area.
Handel received the 2018 ASHEcon Medal for top health economist under the age of 40. His 2015 Econometrica research paper with Igal Hendel and Michael Whinston on “Equilibria in Health Exchanges” was awarded the Econometric Society’s Frisch Medal. Handel received the NIHCM Foundation Research Award for best health economics research paper in 2018. Handel is also a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award and a Sloan Research Fellowship. Handel was also selected as a member of the Review of Economic Studies (ReStud) Tour in 2010.
Handel’s work is primarily concerned with the economic analysis of health insurance markets and the economic analysis of provider productivity. He has studied the role of adverse selection, the nature of competition between insurance providers, and the role of behavioral economics in explaining insurance plan choice. He has researched incentive design and adoption of information technology by health care providers, provider fatigue, and behavioral interventions to improve consumer health care behaviors.