To:     Health Economics and Health Outcomes Researchers

From:   Ernst R. Berndt, David M. Cutler and Mark B. McClellan

Re:     NBER Summer Institute Workshop on Developments in Health Economic
        Outcomes Measurement

Date:   February 16, 2001

The National Bureau of Economic Research is a non-profit, non-partisan economic research
organization.  Among its various programs, the NBER has long had research programs in
Health Care (Alan Garber, Director), and in Technological Change and Productivity
Measurement (Ernst Berndt, Director).  

This summer the Health Care, and Technological Change and Productivity Measurement
programs will jointly hold a one-day workshop on Developments in Health Outcomes
Measurement.  The workshop, co-organized by Ernst R. Berndt, David M. Cutler and Mark
McClellan, will be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Thursday, August 2, 2001.

We plan to assemble a set of empirical and methodological papers on the measurement of
health care quality, health economic outcomes, and their determinants.  The workshop will
emphasize methodologic innovations, and we hope to include papers that include a broad
range of econometric, statistical, and health services research methodologies.   If you have
a paper that you would like to present, please send it or an abstract to the following three
individuals by April 1, 2001:

Ernst R. Berndt          David M. Cutler               Mark B. McClellan
MIT Sloan School         CASBS                         Stanford Dept. of Economics
50 Memorial Drive        75 Alta Road                  579 Serra Mall
Cambridge, MA 02142      Palo Alto, CA 94305           Stanford, CA   94305-6072
617-253-2665             650-321-2052                  650-723-3982
FAX 617-258-6855         FAX: 650-321-1192             FAX 650-724-5535
Email: eberndt@mit.edu   Email: dcutler@harvard.edu    email: markmc@stanford.edu 

This letter of invitation to submit a paper proposal is being mailed widely, so feel free to pass
it on to others who may be interested.

Electronic submissions should be sent in Word, WordPerfect or PDF files, sent as e-mail
attachments.

Unfortunately, space is limited at the Summer Institute and thus it will not be possible to
invite everyone who receives this call for papers.  Presentation invitations and logistical
information will be mailed to participants in April.  If you have any questions, or need
additional information, please contact Rob Shannon in the NBER Conference Department,
617-868-3900 by phone, 617-864-1825 by fax, or confer@nber.org by email.