Alex Chan

Alex Chan

Assistant Professor HBS
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I'm an economist working as an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School. I am a cat, train, manga and Cantonese food enthusiast. I study how market failures occur, how such failures lead to disparities across demographic groups, and how to design incentives and engineer markets to remedy these market failures. Currently, my work focuses on: (1) identifying the causes and consequences of discrimination and diversity in business, education, and healthcare; and (2) identifying how the design of health policies, markets, and healthcare organizations affects allocation outcomes. As a market designer, I have worked with companies and healthcare organizations to launch actual marketplaces (e.g., a liver exchange to find life-saving transplantation opportunities in Pakistan). I hold a Ph.D. from Stanford University (where I was a Graduate Fellow at Roble House) and an M.P.H. from Harvard University. Prior to joining academia, I have had extensive experience in the healthcare industry starting as a McKinsey consultant, and most recently as Senior Vice President of Market Strategy with Optum/UnitedHealth. I was born in Hong Kong, and grew up near where you can find Chinese white dolphins.

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