Regular biography
Leemore S. Dafny is the Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Business Administration and the Howard Cox Health Care Initiative Faculty Co-Chair at the Harvard Business School. She also serves as Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Dafny is an applied microeconomist whose research examines competitive interactions among and between payers, providers of healthcare services, and pharmaceutical manufacturers, with an emphasis on policy implications. Her work has been published in academic journals such as The American Economic Review and The New England Journal of Medicine, and featured in popular media such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Current areas of interest include studies of patient assistance for pharmaceuticals, the organizational structure of the healthcare sector, and private and public-sector efforts to optimize and contain healthcare spending. Professor Dafny is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, and President of the American Society of Health Economists. She is on the editorial board of NEJM Catalyst and has served on the editorial boards of American Economic Journal: Policy and Management Science. She was on the board of the Health Care Cost Institute from 2013 to 2020. Professor Dafny’s expertise spans both the public and private sectors. She was Deputy Director for Health Care and Antitrust at the Federal Trade Commission from 2012-2013 and was on the Panel of Health Advisers for the Congressional Budget Office for over a decade. She has submitted public comments and amicus briefs in several matters and has testified on competition issues to both houses of Congress and in federal court. Dafny advises companies, government agencies, and nonprofits on a variety of issues including antitrust matters, strategic decisions, and public policy. Professor Dafny graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and worked as a consultant with McKinsey & Company prior to earning her PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Scholar-generated biography
Leemore Dafny is the Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. Her research focuses on health care, particularly the impact of market dynamics and policy interventions on health care delivery and pricing. She examines how hospitals and health insurance markets respond to price changes, mergers, and regulatory reforms. Her work explores the effects of hospital consolidation, insurance market competition, and transparency initiatives on patient access and quality of care. Dafny's research also investigates the role of public insurance programs and the implications of narrow networks on health insurance markets.