LEILA AGHA [email protected]

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

OFFICE CONTACT INFORMATION HOME CONTACT INFORMATION MIT Department of 285 Third St. 50 Memorial Drive, E52-391 Apt. 431 Cambridge, MA 02142-1347 Cambridge, MA 02142 217-714-1046 Mobile: 217-714-1046 [email protected] http://econ-www.mit.edu/grad/lagha

MIT PLACEMENT OFFICER MIT PLACEMENT ADMINISTRATOR Professor Nancy L. Rose [email protected] Mr. Peter Hoagland [email protected] 617-253-8956 617-253-8787

DOCTORAL Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) STUDIES: PhD, Economics, Expected completion June 2011 DISSERTATION: “Essays on Health Economics and Technology Adoption”

DISSERTATION COMMITTEE AND REFERENCES Professor Michael Greenstone Professor David Autor MIT Department of Economics MIT Department of Economics 50 Memorial Drive, E52-359 50 Memorial Drive, E52-371 Cambridge, MA 02142-1347 Cambridge, MA 02142-1347 (617) 452-4127 (617) 258-7698 [email protected] [email protected]

Professor Amy Finkelstein MIT Department of Economics 50 Memorial Drive, E52-357 Cambridge, MA 02142-1347 [email protected]

PRIOR Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006 EDUCATION S.B. Economics, Minor in Literature

CITIZENSHIP GENDER Female YEAR OF BIRTH 1985

RESEARCH & Primary Fields: Public Economics, Health Economics TEACHING Secondary Fields: Economics of Technology and Innovation, Labor Economics FIELDS

TEACHING Research & Communication in Economics (undergraduate, MIT 2009 EXPERIENCE Course 14.33), Teaching Assistant to Professor Amy Finkelstein Development Economics (undergraduate, MIT Course 14.74), 2009 Teaching Assistant to Professor Evaluating Social Programs (Jameel Poverty Action Lab Executive 2008 Education); Teaching Assistant

RELEVANT Research assistant to Professor Michael Greenstone 2008 POSITIONS Research assistant to Professor Esther Duflo 2007 Research assistant to Professor Abhijit Banerjee 2007 Research consultant to The World Bank, Jakarta, Indonesia 2007 LEILA AGHA OCTOBER 2010 – PAGE 2

FELLOWSHIPS, National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship 2007-2011 HONORS, AND MIT Ida M. Green Graduate Fellowship 2006-2007 AWARDS MIT Economics Department Castle Krob Graduate Fellowship 2006-2008 Phi Beta Kappa 2006 Association of MIT Alumnae Senior Academic Award 2006 Galbraith Scholar, Harvard Kennedy School of Government 2006 Junior Fellow, American Academy of Political and Social Science 2006

PROFESSIONAL Referee: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Journal of Labor ACTIVITIES Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics

RESEARCH “The Effects of Health Information Technology on the Costs and Quality of PAPERS: Medical Care” Information technology has been linked to productivity growth in a wide variety of sectors, and health information technology (HIT) is a leading example of an innovation with the potential to transform industrywide productivity. This paper analyzes the impact of HIT on the quality and intensity of care delivered to Medicare inpatients. Building an organizational model, I show how the adoption of HIT may improve patient health and may either increase or decrease medical expenditures. Using Medicare claims data from 1998-2005, I estimate the effects of HIT by exploiting variation in hospitals’ adoption statuses over time, analyzing 2.5 million inpatient admissions across 3900 hospitals. HIT is associated with an initial 1.3% increase in billed charges, and there is no evidence of cost savings, even five years after adoption. Additionally, HIT adoption appears to have little impact on the quality of care, measured by patient mortality, medical complication rates, adverse drug events, and readmission rates. These results are robust to the addition of rich controls for pre-trends. The findings suggest that HIT is not associated with improvements in either the efficiency or quality of hospital care for Medicare patients, through five years after adoption.

RESEARCH IN “Technology Diffusion in Medicare: Financial Incentives and Physician PROGRESS: Learning” New medical technologies are thought to be a primary driver of rising medical costs as well as improved health outcomes and longevity. Understanding which factors predict and encourage efficient adoption of new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies could inform policies that facilitate appropriate use of new technologies while minimizing costs. In this paper, I exploit regional variation in Medicare reimbursement policy for nascent technologies to analyze how financial incentives affect the speed and persistence of technology diffusion. I also analyze to what extent physicians learn about the efficacy and applicability of a new technology from peers at other hospitals. This research will test whether early-adopting regions undertake costly experimentation on new medical technologies, where the returns are uncertain and low on average, thus subsidizing the learning process for late-adopting regions.