My research examines the effects of institutions, policies, and market structure on health care pricing and delivery. The majority of my work stems from information problems inherent in health care and how these information problems play out in health care pricing and delivery.
Selected publications are listed below. For a full list of papers and other academic activities, see my complete CV.
Ongoing Projects
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Haizhen Lin, Ian McCarthy, Michael Richards, and Christopher Whaley. “Owning the Agent: Hospital Influence on Physician Behaviors,” Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Human Resources
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Ian McCarthy and Seth Richards-Shubik. “Learning and Efficiency in the Market for Physician Referrals,” Working Paper
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Ian McCarthy, Kaylyn Sanbower, and Leonardo Sanchez-Aragon. “Online Reviews and Hospital Choices,” Working Paper
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Ian McCarthy and Evan Saltzman. “Decision Assistance and Insurer Steering in Health Insurance,” Working Project
Publications in Economics Journals
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Ian McCarthy and Mehul Raval. 2023. “Price Spillovers and Specialization in Health Care: The Case of Children's Hospitals,” Health Economics 32:2408-23. doi:
10.1002/hec.4734 -
Michael Darden, Ian McCarthy, and Eric Barrette. 2023. “Who pays in pay-for-performance? Evidence from hospital prices and financial penalties,” American Journal of Health Economics 9(3):435-60. doi:
10.1086/723280 -
Haizhen Lin and Ian McCarthy. 2023. “Multimarket Contact in Health Insurance: Evidence from Medicare Advantage,” Journal of Industrial Economics 71(1):212-55. doi:
10.1111/joie.12318 -
Haizhen Lin, Ian McCarthy, and Michael Richards. 2021. “Hospital Pricing Following Integration with Physician Practices,” Journal of Health Economics 77. doi:
10.1016/j.jhealeco.2021.102444 -
David Howard and Ian McCarthy. 2021. “Deterrence effects of antifraud and abuse enforcement in health care,” Journal of Health Economics 75. doi:
10.1016/j.jhealeco.2020.102405 -
Matthew Harris, Yinan Liu, and Ian McCarthy. 2020. “Capacity constraints and time allocation in public health clinics,” Health Economics 29(3):324-336. doi:
10.1002/hec.3984 -
Ian McCarthy. 2018. “Quality disclosure and the timing of insurers’ adjustments: Evidence from medicare advantage,” Journal of Health Economics 61:13-26. doi:
10.1016/j.jhealeco.2018.06.007 -
Ian McCarthy and Sean Huang. 2018. “Vertical Alignment Between Hospitals and Physicians as a Bargaining Response to Commercial Insurance Markets,” Review of Industrial Organization 53:7-29. doi:
10.1007/s11151-017-9609-5 -
Lorenzo Almada and Ian McCarthy. 2017. “It's a cruel summer: Household responses to reductions in government nutrition assistance,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 143:45-57. doi:
10.1016/j.jebo.2017.08.009 -
Ian McCarthy and Michael Darden. 2017. “Supply-Side Responses to Public Quality Ratings: Evidence from Medicare Advantage,” American Journal of Health Economics 3(2):140-64. doi:
10.1162/AJHE_a_00070 -
Ian McCarthy. 2016. "Eliminating composite bias in treatment effects estimates: Applications to quality of life assessment,” Journal of Health Economics 50:47-58. doi:
10.1016/j.jhealeco.2016.09.004 -
Lorenzo Almada, Ian McCarthy, and Rusty Tchernis. 2016. “What Can We Learn about the Effects of Food Stamps on Obesity in the Presence of Misreporting?,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 98(4):997-1017. doi:
10.1093/ajae/aaw017 -
Ian McCarthy. 2016. "Advertising Intensity and Welfare in an Equilibrium Search Model,” Economics Letters 141:20-26. doi:
10.1016/j.econlet.2016.01.022 -
Michael Darden and Ian McCarthy. 2015. “The Star Treatment: Estimating the Impact of Star Ratings on Medicare Advantage Enrollments,” Journal of Human Resources 50(4):980-1008. doi:
10.3368/jhr.50.4.980 -
Ian McCarthy. 2015. “Putting the Patient in Patient Reported Outcomes: A Robust Methodology for Health Outcomes Assessment,” Health Economics 24(12):1588-1603. doi:
10.1002/hec.3113
Publications in Medical and Health Policy Journals
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Caroline Hanson, Ian McCarthy, Eamon Molloy, and Karen Stockley. “New Data Show Nongroup Plans Paid Significantly Lower Prices to Providers Than Employer Plans In 2021,” forthcoming at Health Affairs
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Xin Hu, Ian McCarthy, Robin Yabroff, Wen You, Joseph Lipscomb, and Ilana Graetz. 2024. “Association Between Medicare Site-Based Payment Policy, Physician Practice Characteristics, and Vertical Integration Among Oncologists,” Journal of Clinical Oncology: Oncology Practice (online ahead of print). doi:
10.1200/op.24.00091