This paper discusses how limited ability to assess patient risk of illness and predict treatment response may affect the welfare achieved by adherence to clinical practice guidelines and by decentralized clinical practice. I explain why predictive ability has been limited, calling attention to...

Individuals respond to pharmaceutical treatments differently due to the heterogeneity of patient populations. This heterogeneity can make it difficult to determine how efficacious or burdensome a treatment is for an individual patient. Personalized medicine involves using patient...

Two in five Americans have medical debt, nearly half of whom owe at least $2,500. Concerned by this burden, governments and private donors have undertaken large, high-profile efforts to relieve medical debt. We partnered with RIP Medical Debt to conduct two randomized experiments that relieved...