NBER Profile: Jay Bhattacharya

Jay Bhattacharya is a Faculty Research Fellow in the NBER's Programs on Health Care and Health Economics and an assistant professor in the Centers for Health Policy and for Primary Care and Outcomes Research (CHP/PCOR) at Stanford University's Medical School. Bhattacharya earned his bachelor's and master's degree in economics, his M.D. in 1997, and his Ph.D. in Economics in 2000, all from Stanford University. He worked for three years as an economist at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, CA, where he also taught health economics as a visiting assistant professor at the University of California-Los Angeles.

Bhattacharya's research focuses on how insurance markets and government programs affect the health and well being of a wide variety of vulnerable populations, including the elderly, obese populations, HIV patients, cancer patients, and disabled individuals. His work is widely published in economics, statistics, medical, and health policy journals.

Bhattacharya and his wife, Catherine Su, live in Los Altos, California with their children: Jodie, 7, Matthew, 3, and Benjamin, 1. Bhattacharya enjoys spending his free time playing with his kids, especially geeky video games. He also enjoys non-fiction books of all sorts. Most recently, he has been reading about the history and economics of ancient Rome.

NBER Profile: Mihir A. Desai

Mihir A. Desai is a Research Associate in the NBER's Public Economics and Corporate Finance Programs, the co-director of the NBER's India Program, and a Professor and Chair of the Doctoral Programs at Harvard Business School. His research focuses on international corporate and public finance.

Desai received a B.A. in history and economics from Brown University in 1989, an M.B.A. as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School in 1993, and a Ph.D. in political economy from Harvard University in 1998. In 1994, he was a Fulbright Scholar to India. Desai has taught at Harvard Business School since 1998.

His academic publications have appeared in various scholarly journals and he is currently an Associate Editor of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. He is also the author of International Finance: A Casebook (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), which features his many case studies on international corporate finance.

Desai is married to Teena Shetty and they have twin girls, Mia Gitanjali and Ila Gayatri.

NBER Profile: Robert Shimer

Robert Shimer is a Research Associate in the NBER's Program on Economic Fluctuations and Growth and the Alvin H. Baum Professor in Economics and the College at the University of Chicago. He received his B.A. in economics from Yale University in 1990, his M. Phil. in economics from Oxford University in 1992, and his Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1996.

Shimer began his academic career at Princeton University and joined the economics faculty at the University of Chicago in 2003. Shimer is a visiting professor at MIT this fall semester. He is also a consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and is currently editor of the Journal of Political Economy.

Shimer's research looks at the topics of labor markets and macroeconomics. He has mainly focused on search frictions, but more recently become interested in the mismatch between workers' human capital and geographic location and the skill requirements and location of available jobs.

Shimer is married to Alicia Menendez, a Research Associate in the Harris School at the University of Chicago. When not in his office, Shimer enjoys skiing and scuba diving.