Anwita Mahajan
2026-2027 Job Market Candidate

Anwita Mahajan

I am a postdoctoral scholar in Economics at UC San Diego. My research spans health economics, industrial organization and public economics. My research studies how provider behavior in healthcare is shaped by government regulation, and how federal-state health policy design shapes insurance coverage and state fiscal outcomes. I also study how AI can strengthen transparency and reproducibility in observational research.

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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 with Francisco Garrido and Adrian Rubli
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.

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Short Summary Podcast

Presentations

  • 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
  • UT/ITAM Tex-Mex 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 with Douglas Staiger, Lucy Skinner, David Auerbach, and Peter Buerhaus
Published in 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.

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Short Summary Podcast
Federal-State Health Policy and Insurance Coverage
Health Impacts of Federal Pandemic Aid to State and Local Governments with Jeffrey Clemens
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.

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Short Summary Podcast

Presentations

  • 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 and Improve Welfare Sole-authored
Working Paper Under Review

State minimum wage increases reduced employer-sponsored health insurance coverage and shifted low-income workers toward Medicaid coverage.

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Short Summary Podcast

Presentations

  • 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 with Jeffrey Clemens and Joseph Sabia
Working Paper 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.

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Short Summary Podcast
Understanding Cross-State Variations in Medicaid Enrollment During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic with Jeffrey Clemens and Helena Detering
Accepted, 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.

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An Unfunded Mandate? Medicaid Continuous Coverage Requirements and State Fiscal Burdens During COVID-19 with Jeffrey Clemens
Published in 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.

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The Recent and Impending Evolution of US Federal Support for State and Local Governments with Jeffrey Clemens
In preparation for the 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 with Jeffrey Clemens
Working Paper

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.

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Short Summary Podcast
The Long-Run Effects of the Affordable Care Act: A Pre-Committed Research Design Over the COVID-19 Recession and Recovery with Jeffrey Clemens and Joseph Sabia
Working Paper 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
Short Summary Podcast
*Disclaimer: I am currently experimenting with AI-generated podcasts using Gemini Notebook to summarize my research. These audio files may not reflect the full accuracy or nuance of the original papers.

Communication of Economics Research

Presentations and public engagement designed to distill economic findings for broader audiences.

Three Minute Thesis
Winner (2024), Georgetown University

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
Finalist (2025), UC San Diego

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)