Michael Darden, PhD

Michael Darden is an Associate Professor at the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University.  He is also a Research Faculty Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Co-Editor at the Journal of Human Resources. Dr. Darden is the Academic Program Director of the Health Care Management program.  Dr. Darden conducts research in health economics and health econometrics.  His research has appeared in numerous academic journals, including the Journal of Political Economy and all three major health economics journals.

Education

• Ph.D., Economics, University of North Carolina
• B.S., Economics, North Carolina State University

Research

Selected publications

• "Externalities from Medical Innovation: Evidence from Organ Transplantation" (with Kevin Callison and Keith Teltser), Forthcoming at Journal of Political Economy - Microeconomics
• "Optimal E-Cigarette Policy When Preferences and Internalities are Correlated" Journal of Risk and Uncertainty.
• "Smoking, Selection, and Medical Care Expenditures" (with Robert Kaestner), 2022 Journal of Risk and Uncertainty.
• “Smoking and Mortality: New Evidence from a Long Panel’’ (with Donna Gilleskie and Koleman Strumpf), 2018 International Economic Review.
• “Smoking, Expectations, and Health: A Dynamic Stochastic Model of Lifetime Smoking Behavior” 2017 Journal of Political Economy.
• “The Star Treatment: Estimating the Impact of Star Ratings on Medicare Advantage Enrollments” (with Ian McCarthy), 2015 Journal of Human Resources.
• “Are Investments in Disease Prevention Complements? The Case of Statins and Health Behaviors” (with Robert Kaestner and Darius Lakdawalla), 2014 Journal of Health Economics.
• “The Effects of Parental Health Shocks on Adult Offspring Smoking Behavior and Self-Assessed Health” (with Donna Gilleskie), 2015 Health Economics.

Working papers

• “Rational Self-Medication.” with Nick Papageorge.
• “Who Pays in Pay-for-Performance: Evidence from Hospital Pricing.” with Ian McCarthy and Eric Barrette.
• “The Health Care Costs of Smoking Among the Elderly.” with Robert Kaestner.

Teaching

Current

• Frameworks for Analyzing Health Care Markets
• Providers and Payers

Previous

• Economics and Decision Making
• Econometrics

Honors and Distinctions

• 2024 Johns Hopkins University Discovery Award
• 2019 Johns Hopkins University Catalyst Award

In the Media

• Economists and Epidemiologists Need to Get Along