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Dr Joan Costa-I-Font
Reader in Political Economy
European Institute,
Department of Social Policy
Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6484
Email: j.costa-font@lse.ac.uk|
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Biography
Dr Joan Costa Font (Joan) is Reader ( 'Associate Professor' in the US) in Political Economy, a joint appointment between the Departments of Social Policy| and the European Institute| at LSE where he is a research associate at LSE Health|, the Center for Economic Performance (CEP)| and the Political Science and Political Economy Group. In addition he is CESifo| (Munich) and Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada| (FEDEA) network research fellow.
His broad research focus includes developing the ‘political economy’ (theoretically grounded 'economic and public policy analysis') of health and social policy alongside the fields of ‘social and health economics’. The bulk of his current work falls in one of the following three projects a) 'health care decentralization and public choice', b) 'health and long term care insurance design' and c) 'the social, cultural and life course determinants of health'. His research interests include understanding the influence of both social (non-monetary) incentives (culture, identity, status, self-image, altruism), and institutional arrangements accommodating preference heterogeneity (primarily the federalisation and financial reform of health systems) on health, insurance and redistribution.
Joan has just finished editing a book "Federalism and Decentralization in European Health and Social Care" (with Scott Greer, University of Michigan ) and is currently working together with different CEP and STICERD colleagues on the effects of life course events and policy reforms on wellbeing and health inequalities. In 2012/13 he has been a Harkness Fellow at Harvard University working on long term care insurance design in the United States and Europe together with Harvard University professors Richard Frank and Katherine Swartz.
His main academic responsibilities include co-editing the journal Applied Economics, Perspectives and Policy| (a leading journal in applied economics), and assisting a range of academic journals in his areas of specialism including being an editorial Board member of the journal Social Policy and Administration| and special issue editor of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy and the CESIfo Economic Studies, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy among other journals.
Main Areas of Supervision
Political Economy - Health Economics - Social Economics – Social Policy – Empirical Economics
Research Interests
Political Economy of Long Term Care Financing and Design
Political Economy of Health Systems and Medicines
Regulation Economic Theory of Social Motivation, Ideas and Redistribution
Social and Life-course Transmission of Inequalities and Lifestyles
For a detailed list of publications, please see Joan's LSE Research Online Profile| and his Google Scholar Citations|
Teaching
Social Policy
SA4F7 The Economics of European Social Policy|
SA449 Advanced Health Economics|
European Institute
EU455 Concepts of Political Economy
|EU439 Political and Fiscal Integration and Disintegration in EU Member States|