Harkness Project Title: Similar systems, varying expenditure: what can the US learn from the Netherlands?
Placement: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mentors: Jonathan Gruber, Ph.D., Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Economics
David Cutler, Ph.D., Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, Harvard University
Biography at time of Harkness Fellowship: Xander Koolman, Ph.D., a 2010-11 Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice, is an economist and associate professor of health care performance measurement at Delft University of Technology. He was also co-editor and a lead author on the Dutch Health Care Performance Report (Zorgbalans), responsible for sections on the 2006 reforms, costs, efficiency, inequity, and performance measurement. Koolman also serves as a consulting associate expert at SiRM and as adviser, quality measurement at the provider level, for the Department of Health (Zichtbare Zorg). His research interests include health economics and inequality in health care. Previously, Koolman has served as visiting researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, assistant professor at Erasmus Medical Center, research fellow in the department of economics at the University of York, and editor of VGE bulletin. He is author of 14 peer-reviewed publications in journals including Health Economics and the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Koolman holds a Ph.D. from Erasmus University Rotterdam and an M.A. from Maastricht University School of Business and Economics.
Project: Koolman’s project was aimed at decomposing health expenditure differences between the Netherlands and the United States. Quantitative analysis were attempted of individual claims data from U.S. and Dutch private insurers comparing raw expenditure differences, in order decompose differences according to need, prices, quantities and intensity of health care.
Career Activity since Fellowship
- Advisory Board Member, Dutch Health Care Authority, 2016
- Director, Healthcare Program, Talma Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2015
- Associate Professor of Health Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2011
- Associate Partner at SiRM - Strategies in Regulated Markets, 2008
Current Position: (updated 7/2017)
- Director, Healthcare Program, Talma Institute and Associate Professor of Health Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Email: [email protected]