Austin Frakt

Austin Frakt is a health economist and researcher, the creator, co-manager, and a primary author of The Incidental Economist, and a regular contributor to The New York Times’ The Upshot.

Professor Frakt’s educational background is in physics and engineering. After receiving his PhD in statistical and applied mathematics he spent four years at a research and consulting firm conducting policy evaluations for federal health agencies. Professor Frakt now has appointments with Health Care Financing & Economics (HCFE) at the Boston VA Healthcare System, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; the Department of Psychiatry at Boston University’s School of Medicine; and the Department of Health Policy and Management at Boston University’s School of Public Health. He is also an Adjunct Senior Fellow at The Leonard Davis Institute, University of Pennsylvania. Since 1999, he has studied economic issues pertaining to U.S. health care policy. He is currently a principal investigator of the Veterans Health Administration’s Evidence-Based Policy Resource Center.

Professor Frakt has authored numerous peer-reviewed, scholarly publications, many relevant to health care financing, economics, and policy. His peer-reviewed papers have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Milbank Quarterly, Health Care Financing Review, Health Affairs, Health Economics, Health Services Research, International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, among other journals.

Professor Frakt serves on the editorial boards of Health Services Research and the American Journal of Managed Care. He also serves on the Academy Health Translation and Dissemination Institute Advisory Committee; as a member of the New England Comparative Effectiveness Public Advisory Council; and as a member of the Veterans Health Administration’s Evidence-based Synthesis Program Steering Committee.