Anwita Mahajan
I am a postdoctoral scholar in Economics at UC San Diego. My research spans health economics, industrial organization and public economics. I study how provider behavior in healthcare is impacted by government regulation, and how federal-state health policy design affects insurance coverage and state fiscal outcomes. I also study how AI can strengthen transparency and reproducibility in observational research.
Job Market Paper
Consolidation Under Regulated Prices: Capacity, Quality, and Patient Health in the Dialysis Industry
How do mergers affect consumers when prices are regulated and firms compete instead on quality and capacity? We study consolidation in the U.S. outpatient dialysis industry, where Medicare sets prices, competition is local, and treatment is life-sustaining. Using 30 years of data covering more than 850 mergers and a stacked event-study design, we document contrasting short- and long-run effects. Mergers induce facility closures that, despite offsetting entry, reduce market capacity. Closures displace patients, disrupt treatment, and increase mortality by roughly 650 deaths per 100,000 patients in the merger year. Over the subsequent five years, however, health improves: hospitalizations, ICU days, and blood transfusions decline. These effects are unrelated to changes in market concentration and do not differ across Medicare payment regimes. We develop a model that identifies a novel mechanism rationalizing these patterns. Before a merger, switching costs leave patients captive, allowing low-quality facilities to survive. After a merger, the acquirer closes the target, eliminating its fixed costs and realizing scale economies in variable costs from serving more patients. Closure imposes switching costs on displaced patients, generating the short-run mortality spike, but also makes these patients contestable, strengthening incentives for surviving facilities and entrants to compete for them by raising quality. A cost-benefit analysis suggests that, under the status quo, short-run mortality costs moderately exceed long-run benefits from reduced hospitalizations, but policies that mitigate treatment disruption could reduce these costs while preserving the benefits.
View Latest VersionPresentations
- San Diego State University CHEPS/Economics Seminar 2026
- NBER Economic Analysis of Regulation Meeting 2026
- Toulouse School of Economics 4th Health Economics Conference 2026
- Becker Friedman Institute Health Economics Initiative Conference 2026
- Electronic Health Economics Colloquium 2026
- Annual International Industrial Organization Conference 2026
- UC San Diego Labor/Public Seminar 2025
- AEA ASSA Meeting 2025
- BYU Future of Antitrust Conference 2024
Research
Expand the thematic categories below to explore my research papers, including publication status, one-line abstracts, and short audio summaries* (2 mins or less).
Provider Behavior Under Regulation
Consolidation Under Regulated Prices: Capacity, Quality, and Patient Health in the Dialysis Industry
Job Market Paper
When prices are regulated, such as in outpatient dialysis, mergers reduce capacity but generate long-run quality gains, imposing short-run costs on consumers through transitional disruptions but yielding long-run benefits.
View PaperPresentations
- San Diego State University CHEPS/Economics Seminar 2026
- NBER Economic Analysis of Regulation Meeting 2026
- Toulouse School of Economics 4th Health Economics Conference 2026
- Becker Friedman Institute Health Economics Initiative Conference 2026
- Electronic Health Economics Colloquium 2026
- Annual International Industrial Organization Conference 2026
- UC San Diego Labor/Public Seminar 2025
- AEA ASSA Meeting 2025
- BYU Future of Antitrust Conference 2024
Association Between the Growth of Accountable Care Organizations and Physician Work Hours and Self-Employment
JAMA Network Open, 2018
Accountable care organizations, which are networks of hospitals and providers jointly responsible for the quality of care, reduce physician employment and hours worked.
View PaperMedia Coverage
Federal-State Health Policy and Insurance Coverage
Health Impacts of Federal Pandemic Aid to State and Local Governments
Revise and Resubmit (2026), Journal of Public Economics
Federal aid to state and local governments during the COVID-19 pandemic reduced mortality by increasing vaccination and testing.
View PaperPresentations
- NBER Summer Institute Public Economics 2025
- Annual Health Economics Conference 2025
- Vanderbilt University 2025
- University of Alabama 2025
- UC Riverside 2025
- Brookings Institution 2025
Media Coverage
Minimum Wage Increases Move Workers from Employer Coverage to Medicaid
Under Review
State minimum wage increases reduced employer-sponsored health insurance coverage and shifted low-income workers toward Medicaid coverage.
View PaperPresentations
- AEA ASSA Meeting 2025
- ASHEcon 2024
- Washington Area Labor Economics Symposium 2024
- MIT Sloan Rising Scholars Conference 2023
- CATO Institute Health Policy Workshop 2023
- International Atlantic Economic Conference 2023
- National Institute of Public Finance and Policy 2023
The Long-Run Effects of the Affordable Care Act: A Pre-Committed Research Design Over the COVID-19 Recession and Recovery
Under Review
The effects of the Affordable Care Act on health insurance coverage remained stable throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving employer coverage and uninsurance largely unchanged despite substantial labor market churn.
View Paper
Understanding Cross-State Variations in Medicaid Enrollment During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic
Accepted (2026), Contemporary Economic Policy
Long-standing differences in state eligibility rules explain much of the cross-state variation in enrollment dynamics during the implementation and unwinding of continuous coverage, while state administrative policies aimed at easing the unwinding friction played a more limited role than expected.
View Paper
An Unfunded Mandate? Medicaid Continuous Coverage Requirements and State Fiscal Burdens During COVID-19
Public Budgeting & Finance, 2026
The 6.2 percentage point increase in the federal Medicaid reimbursement rate to states offset the aggregate costs of maintaining Medicaid coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic, but two-thirds of states experienced net fiscal deficits.
View Paper
The Recent and Impending Evolution of US Federal Support for State and Local Governments
In Preparation, National Tax Journal Spring 2027 Forum
Pandemic-era federal grants produced a “ratchet effect” in state spending; as federal funds declined, non-federal sources largely stepped in to sustain spending, with effects varying across transportation, education, and Medicaid.
AI to Enhance Transparency in Observational Research
The Utility of AI Tools in Auditing Adherence to Pre-Analysis Plans
Under Review
LLMs can efficiently and comprehensively audit adherence to pre-committed research plans, even when plans are narrative and describe contingencies, substantially reducing the human labor required for such audits.
View Paper
The Long-Run Effects of the Affordable Care Act: A Pre-Committed Research Design Over the COVID-19 Recession and Recovery
Under Review
The effects of the Affordable Care Act on health insurance coverage remained stable throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving employer coverage and uninsurance largely unchanged despite substantial labor market churn.
View PaperCommunication of Economics Research
Presentations and public engagement designed to distill economic findings for broader audiences.
Three Minute Thesis
A three-minute presentation explaining the core questions, methodology, and public policy implications of my research to a non-specialist audience. Read about this global competition here.
Postdoc Pitch
My recorded presentation for the Postdoc Pitch competition, where I communicated my research to a non-specialist audience in 3 minutes.
Watch directly on YouTube (21:14)Teaching
A summary of my academic teaching experience.
Instructor of Record
- Economic Statistics (Undergraduate) 2022
Instructor at Georgetown University.
Teaching Assistant
- Georgetown University 2019-2024
Graduate: Data Analysis
Undergraduate: Senior Capstone, Public Economics, Economic Statistics, Intermediate Micro, Behavioral Economics - Dartmouth College 2017
Undergraduate: Topics in Money and Finance