Biography: Laurence Baker, Ph.D. is Professor of Health Policy and Knowles Professor of Human Biology at Stanford University. He is a health economist who uses applies economic and statistical analysis to study challenges facing the health care system. Professor Baker has published widely and served as an advisor to the public and private sectors on a range of health care system and financing issues including the effects of financial incentives and provider organizational structure on the delivery of health care and health care spending, technological change in medicine, competition in health care markets, and managed care and insurance plans. Professor Baker also serves as Associate Chair for Education in the Department of Health Policy and holds appointments as Senior Fellow of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA. Professor Baker directs the Stanford School of Medicine’s Scholarly Concentration and Medical Scholars programs. Professor Baker is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and a recipient of the ASHE Medal from the American Society of Health Economists which recognizes the top American health economist under the age of 40. He has also received the Alice S. Hersh Young Investigator Award from AcademyHealth and the National Institute for Health Care Management’s research prize. He is Past President of the American Society of Health Economists, and previously served on the board of AcademyHealth and the International Health Economics Association. Professor Baker received his Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University in 1994 and his B.A. in Economics and Mathematics from Calvin College in 1990.
