Boris Vabson, PhD

Boris Vabson is a research faculty member at Harvard Medical School,  with expertise at the intersection of health care, business, data, and policy. He is also a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Alongside his academic work, Boris is involved in a number of leading ventures in the health tech and insurance tech spaces, as an advisor, consultant, and entrepreneur.

Boris's academic work focuses on health insurance payment systems and markets, with a particular focus on Medicaid and Medicare. Boris looks at opportunities for improving the cost-efficiency and performance of Medicare and Medicaid. He also studies the ongoing privatization of these programs—specifically, how privatization should be structured to optimize outcomes—and the impact of different health insurance design features. His research has been published in top economics journals and covered by major news media outlets, including the NY Times and Bloomberg. His work on Medicare Advantage was named a finalist for the 2019 NIHCM Research Awards, recognizing the most impactful health care research in America.

He received his Ph.D. in Applied Economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and was also a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at NBER. He received his AB from Dartmouth in Economics and Mathematics.