Contact information:
Encina Commons, Office 182
615 Crothers Way
Stanford, CA, 94305
Tel: (650) 498-7528
Email: maria.polyakova at stanford.edu

I am a health economist. My research studies the efficiency and distributional consequences of government interventions in healthcare markets. My goal is to understand why (and for whom) some interventions prove to be effective, while some - costly and distortionary. My work to-date has focused on two main areas: (1) health insurance policies, including the impact of insurance policies on the medical workforce, the design of subsidies, regulation of contracts, and consumer choice architecture; (2) informational policies such as expert advice, information about risks, and medical guidelines. I use a broad toolbox of empirical methods and a variety of administrative data and contexts, including Medicare, Medicaid, and ACA Marketplaces.

Appointments

• Assistant Professor, Department of Health Policy, Stanford University School of Medicine
• Faculty Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)
• Faculty Research Fellow (Health Care and Public Economics programs), National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
• Research Network Affiliate, CESifo

Academic Degrees

• PhD, Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2014
• BA, Economics & Mathematics, Yale University, 2008