The Mark V. Pauly, PhD President's Distinguished Professorship
This Professorship was established in 2017 through the generosity of Janet F. Haas, MD, and John Otto Haas. Their gift provides financial support for a prominent faculty member in the Perelman School of Medicine and also pays tribute to one of the world’s leading health economists, Mark V. Pauly.
Dr. Pauly, the Bendheim Emeritus Professor of Health Care Management at Wharton, has made significant contributions to the fields of medical economics and health insurance. His classic study on the economics of moral hazard was the first to point out how health insurance coverage may affect patients’ use of medical services. Subsequent work has explored the impact of conventional insurance coverage on preventive care, on outpatient care, and on prescription drug use in managed care. In addition, he has explored the influences that determine whether insurance coverage is available and, through several cost-effectiveness studies, the influence of medical care and health practices on health outcomes and cost. Most recently, he has examined the topics of national health care reform, the individual insurance market, the effects of poor health on worker productivity, and the market for voluntary health insurance in developing countries.
Dr. Pauly has held key government advisory roles and was President of the American Society of Health Economists. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. Among his honors are the John M. Eisenberg Excellence in Mentorship Award from AHRQ (the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), the William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research, and the Victor Fuchs Award from ASHecon (American Society of Health Economists).
Janet and John Haas are long-time supporters of the University and Penn Medicine having championed numerous strategic initiatives to advance Penn’s mission. In addition to the Mark V. Pauly, PhD President's Distinguished Professorship, they have helped establish the Helen O' Dickens, MD, Presidential Professorship, the Thorne Sparkman, Jr., MD Professorship at Penn Medicine, the Arthur H. Rubenstein MBBCh Professorship, and the John M. Eisenberg, MD Professorship in Medicine. Dr. Haas is an emerita Penn Trustee and Penn Medicine Board Member, and currently serves on Penn Medicine’s Development Leadership Cabinet.
President’s Distinguished Professorships are awarded to eminent faculty members with research and teaching expertise in areas identified by the President of the University as high priorities. The creation of President’s Distinguished Professorships at the Perelman School of Medicine has been supported by the challenge gift of Penn University Trustees and Penn Medicine Board members George A. Weiss and Richard W. Vague.
Current Chairholder
Kevin G. Volpp, MD, PhD
Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD is the founding Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE), Division Chief for Health Policy, and Professor of Health Care Management at the Wharton School. Since 2017, he has served as the inaugural Mark V. Pauly, PhD President’s Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine.
Dr. Volpp received his AB in biology from Harvard University. As an MD/PhD student at Penn, he then trained under Mark V. Pauly, PhD, one of the preeminent health economists of the 20th century and a Wharton faculty member from 1983 to the present—as well as the namesake of the professorship that Dr. Volpp now holds. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is a board-certified practicing physician at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center.
Dr. Volpp’s research develops and tests innovative ways of applying insights from behavioral economics to improving patient health behavior and affecting provider performance. He has published more than 300 papers in high-impact journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and his work has been covered by media outlets including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, “Good Morning America,” the BBC and National Public Radio.
Programs based on research by his team are in place among many large organizations, such as the Humana Simplicity Health Plan, CVS’s enrollment of patients in their automatic refill program, and Hawaii Blue Cross Blue Shield’s payment strategy for primary care doctors. Benefit designs around financial incentives and smoking cessation are used by employers around the U.S.
Dr. Volpp’s efforts have been recognized with numerous prestigious honors, including the Matilda White Riley Award for career achievement by the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences at National Institutes of Health and the John M. Eisenberg Award from the Society of General Internal Medicine. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), the Association of American Physicians (AAP) and the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition, Dr. Volpp has served as an advisor to numerous health plans, employers, and consumer companies.