Ashvin Gandhi

Ashvin Gandhi conducts his research predominantly at the intersection of industrial organization and health economics. He is particularly interested in how firm strategy interacts with health care policy and regulation.

One of his recent projects investigates whether health care providers pick their patients. He uses patient-level administrative data on skilled nursing facilities in California to identify and analyze discriminatory admission practices in the nursing home industry. Gandhi finds evidence of selective admission practices that disproportionately harm Medicaid-eligible patients with lengthy anticipated stays, in spite of anti-discrimination laws. He explores the potential effects of proposed policies intended to mitigate these discriminatory practices.

His current work with Shoshana Vasserman and Pierre Dubois asks what would happen if the United States were to regulate pharmaceutical prices to be lower than in other countries. They find that the dominant effect of such a reference pricing policy could influence pharmaceutical companies to raise prices in other countries rather than substantially lower their U.S. prices. They also find that the structure of such a policy plays an important role in its potential effects.

Education

Ph.D. Economics, 2019, Harvard University

B.A. Mathematics and Economics, 2013, Pomona College