Our Work

Facing unprecedented uncertainty and drastic trade-offs between public health and other forms of human well-being, policy makers during the Covid-19 pandemic have sought the guidance of epidemiologists and economists.

Price surges often generate social disapproval and requests for regulation and price controls, but these interventions may cause inefficiencies and shortages. To study how individuals perceive and reason about sudden price increases for different products under different policy regimes, we conduct a survey experiment with Canadian and U.S. residents.

Mario Macis, PhD of Carey Business School and member of HBHI’s Leadership Committee won a 2020 HBHI pilot grant on “Social Support for Markets in Health and Healthcare: Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic.” His efforts produced a working paper which was disseminated in April 2022 by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) as well as two research networks in Germany.