Jonathan Ketcham

Jonathan Ketcham

Earl and Gladys Davis Distinguished Research Professor in Business and Professor,
Department of Economics
  • [email protected]
  • Phone: 480-965-5507
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  • Department of Economics CRTVC 412 Box 879801 TEMPE, AZ 85287-9801
  • Mail code: 9801
    Campus: Tempe
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Biography Research Teaching Public Work
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Long Bio

Jonathan Ketcham is the Earl G. and Gladys C. Davis Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Economics at the W. P. Carey School of Business. From 2025 to 2026, he served as Chief Healthcare Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, advising on healthcare economic policy across the Department of Health and Human Services and its operating divisions, including the FDA, CMS, NIH, and ARPA-H.

He is also the founder of Margin Health, which works with leaders across private industry, government and financial markets to navigate the regulatory, reimbursement and adoption pathways that shape the translation of healthcare innovation into operational and commercial deployment.

His research sits at the intersection of health economics, consumer behavior and public policy. Using causal-inference econometric methods applied to survey, experimental and large-scale real-world data, his work examines how incentives, information and institutional design influence decision-making by payers, providers and patients. His scholarship has appeared in leading journals across economics, medicine and health policy. He has served as principal investigator on multiple R01 grants from AHRQ, with additional research support from NSF, NIH, EPA and private foundations.

At ASU, Ketcham has previously held faculty appointments in Marketing and in the School of Health Management and Policy, teaching courses spanning marketing research, healthcare economics and finance, business statistics and health policy. He has also held visiting appointments at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Hoover Institution. Prior to joining the White House, he served as Principal Economist at Amazon, advising on employee benefits strategy and healthcare economics.

Education

Ph.D. Economics, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania 2002

B.A. Economics, Baylor University 1997

CV
Curriculum Vitae
Google Scholar URL
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-VwYQqcAAAAJ&hl=en
Publications

PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

  1. Kelly Bishop, Jonathan Ketcham, and Nicolai Kuminoff. 2022. “Hazed and Confused: The Effect of Air Pollution on Dementia.” Forthcoming, Review of Economic Studies. NBER working paper #24970.
  2. Kelly Bishop, Sehba Husain-Krautter, Jonathan Ketcham, Nicolai Kuminoff, and Corbett Schimming. 2021. “Hypothesis: Analyzing Individual-Level Secondary Data with Instrumental Variables Methods is Useful for Studying the Effects of Air Pollution on Dementia.” Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 79(1): 15-23. Link.
  3. Michael Keane, Jonathan Ketcham, Nicolai Kuminoff, and Timothy Neal. 2020. “Evaluating Consumers’ Choices of Medicare Part D Plans: A Study in Behavioral Welfare Economics.” Journal of Econometrics, 222(1A): 107-140. Also NBER working paper #25652. Link.
  4. Jonathan Ketcham, Nicolai Kuminoff, and Christopher Powers. 2019. “Estimating the Heterogeneous Welfare Effects of Choice Architecture: An Application to the Medicare Prescription Drug Insurance Market.” International Economic Review, 60(3):1171-1208. Also NBER working paper #22732.
  5. Jonathan Ketcham, Nicolai Kuminoff, and Christopher Powers. 2016. “Choice Inconsistencies among the Elderly: Evidence from Plan Choice in the Medicare Part D Program: Comment.” American Economic Review, 106(12): 3932-61. Also NBER working paper #21387.
  6. Jonathan Ketcham, Claudio Lucarelli, and Christopher Powers. 2015. “Paying Attention or Paying Too Much in Medicare Part D.” American Economic Review, 105(1): 204-233.
  7. Andrew Epstein and Jonathan Ketcham. 2014. “Information Technology and Agency in Physicians’ Prescribing Decisions.” RAND Journal of Economics, 45(2): 422-448.
  8. Haizhen Lin, Jonathan Ketcham, James N. Rosenquist and Kosali Simon. 2013. “Financial distress and use of mental health care: Evidence from antidepressant prescription claims.” Economics Letters, 121: 449-453.
  9. Jonathan Ketcham, Claudio Lucarelli, Eugenio Miravete and M. Christopher Roebuck. 2012.  “Sinking, Swimming, or Learning to Swim in Medicare Part D.” American Economic Review, 102(6): 2639-2673.
  10. Andrew Epstein, Jonathan Ketcham, Saif Rathore and Peter Groeneveld. 2012. “Variations in Access to Innovation by Payer: The Case of Drug-Eluting Stents.” Medical Care, 50(1): 1-9.
  11. Andrew Epstein, Jonathan Ketcham, and Sean Nicholson. 2010. “Specialization and Matching in Professional Firms.” RAND Journal of Economics, 41(4): 812–835. Also NBER working paper #14070.
  12. Saif Rathore, Jonathan Ketcham, G. Caleb Alexander, and Andrew Epstein. 2009. “Influence of Patient Race on Physician Prescribing Decisions: A Randomized On-line Experiment.” Journal of General Internal Medicine, 24(11): 1183-91.
  13. Jonathan Ketcham, Karen Lutfey, Eric Gerstenberger, Carol Link and John McKinlay. 2009. “Physician Clinical Information Technology and Health Care Disparities.” Medical Care Research and Review, 66(6): 658-681.
  14. Jonathan Ketcham and Kosali Simon. 2008. “Medicare Part D's Effects on Elderly Drug Costs and Utilization.” American Journal of Managed Care, 14(11): SP14-22. Also NBER working paper #14326.
  15. Jonathan Ketcham and Jeffrey Ngai. 2008. “How Similar are States’ Medicaid Preferred Drug Lists?” American Journal of Managed Care, 14(11): SP46-52. 
  16. Andrew Epstein, Saif Rathore, G. Caleb Alexander, and Jonathan Ketcham. 2008. “Primary Care Physicians’ Views on Medicare Part D.” American Journal of Managed Care, 14(11): SP5-13.
  17. Jonathan Ketcham and Michael Furukawa. 2008. “Hospital-Physician Gainsharing in Cardiology.” Health Affairs 27(3): 803-812.
  18. Glenn Melnick and Jonathan Ketcham. 2008. “Have HMOs Broadened their Hospital Networks: Changes in HMO Hospital Networks in California, 1999-2003.” Medical Care 46(3): 339-342.
  19. Jonathan Ketcham and Andrew Epstein. 2008. “Medicaid Preferred Drug Lists’ Costs to Physicians.” Medical Care 46(1): 9-16.
  20. Michael Furukawa, Jonathan Ketcham and Mary Rimsza. 2007. “Physician Practice Revenues and Use of Information Technology in Patient Care.” Medical Care. 45(2): 168-176. 
  21. Jonathan Ketcham, Laurence Baker, and Donna MacIsaac. 2007. “Physician Practice Size and Variations in Treatments and Outcomes: Evidence from Medicare Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction.” Health Affairs. 26(1): 195-205.
  22. Jonathan Ketcham and Andrew Epstein. 2006. “Which Physicians are Affected Most by Medicaid Preferred Drug Lists for Statins and Antihypertensives?” PharmacoEconomics. 24(S3): 27-40.
  23. Karen Lutfey and Jonathan Ketcham. 2005. “Patient and Provider Assessments of Adherence and the Source of Disparities: Evidence from Diabetes Care.” Health Services Research. 40(6): 1803-1817.
  24. Kevin Volpp, Jonathan Ketcham, Andrew Epstein, and Sankey Williams. 2005. “The Effects of Price Competition and Reduced Subsidies for Uncompensated Care on Hospital Mortality.” Health Services Research. 40(4): 1056-1077. 
  25. Daniel Eisenberg and Jonathan Ketcham. 2004. “Economic Voting in US Presidential Elections: Who Blames Whom for What.” The Berkeley Electronic Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy. 4(1): Article 19. 
  26. Patricia Danzon and Jonathan Ketcham. 2004. “Reference Pricing of Pharmaceuticals for Medicare: Evidence from Germany, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.” Forum for Health Economics and Policy (The Berkeley Electronic Press). 7(1): Article 2. Also NBER working paper #10007.
Research Activity

WORKING PAPERS

Jonathan Ketcham, Pierre Léger and Claudio Lucarelli. “Group Incentives and Standardization: An Application to Hospital-Physician Gainsharing.” Revise and resubmit, RAND Journal of Economics.

Jonathan Ketcham and Chad Stecher. “Learning to Work Together: Productivity Gains from Shared Experience among Cardiology Teams.” Revise and Resubmit, American Journal of Health Economics.

Jonathan Ketcham, Nicolai Kuminoff and Nirman Saha. “Valuing Statistical Life Using Seniors’ Medical Spending.”

Jonathan Ketcham, Nicolai Kuminoff and Tomás Sanguinetti. “Using Stochastic Dominance to Evaluate Consumers’ Insurance Choices.”

Courses
2024 Fall
Course Number Course Title
ECN 594 Conference and Workshop
ECN 221 Business Statistics
ECN 355 Economics of Health Care
2022 Spring
Course Number Course Title
ECN 355 Economics of Healthcare
ECN 455 Health Economics
2021 Fall
Course Number Course Title
ECN 455 Health Economics
Service

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Jay Bhattacharya and Jonathan Ketcham. September 2021. “This Will Come Back to Haunt Us” OpEd for Common Sense with Bari Weiss, “Vaccine Mandates: The End of Covid? Or the Beginning of Tyranny?”

Jonathan Ketcham. June 2021. “No free lunch.” Editorial for CollateralGlobal.org.

Jay Bhattacharya and Jonathan Ketcham. April 2020. “The Economic Case against Medicare For All.” Cato Unbound. Cato Unbound.

Jonathan Ketcham, Nicolai Kuminoff, and Christopher Powers. December 2016. “Rejoinder to Abaluck and Gruber.” Available here.

Jonathan Ketcham. “To reduce Alzheimer’s disease, clean up the air.” November 2019. Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research policy brief.

Expertise Areas
Consumer Behavior
Health Economics
Health Policy
Insurance Markets
Pharmaceuticals
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