PHILADELPHIA — Daniel Polsky has been named executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

The announcement was made today by Penn Provost Vincent Price.

Polsky is professor of medicine in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, with a secondary appointment as professor of health-care management in Penn’s Wharton School.  He has taught at Penn since 1996, when he earned his Ph.D. in economics, and has been director of research at Penn LDI since 2008.  He serves on the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Health Advisers and in 2007-08 was senior economist on health issues for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.

A globally recognized expert in health economics, Polsky is a co-author of Economic Evaluation in Clinical Trials and an author of more than 90 peer-reviewed articles in such leading journals as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association and Journal of Health Economics.  His research has received extensive federal funding, including multiple awards from the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  In addition to his doctorate earned at Penn, he earned an M.P.P. in 1989 and a B.A. in economics in 1988, both from the University of Michigan.

“The relationships between health care and economics –- which the LDI has been investigating for 45 years –- are more central than ever on the global agenda,” Price said.  “Dan Polsky’s interdisciplinary research and collaborative approach make him the ideal director to continue this invaluable work, building on the great strides made under the dynamic leadership of David Asch.  I am grateful to the members of the consultative committee –- Deans Larry Jameson, Afaf Meleis and Thomas Robertson and Senior Vice Provost for Research Steven Fluharty –- for their careful and insightful advice leading to this outstanding appointment.” 

Polsky succeeds Asch, executive director of Penn LDI since 1998, who has been appointed inaugural executive director of the Penn Medicine Center for Innovation. 

Penn LDI, established in 1967 with a gift from Leonard and Sophie Davis, serves as the University’s primary locus for research, policy analysis and education in health systems.  More than 200 LDI Senior Fellows work to improve the health of the public through studies on the medical, economic and social issues that influence how health care is organized, financed, managed and delivered, guiding health policies at all levels of government and the private sector.