Rebecca Stein is a senior lecturer of economics at the University of Pennsylvania. She teaches large sections of introductory microeconomics to almost a thousand students a year. Dr. Stein earned her B.A. from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her PhD from Northwestern University. She received the University of Pennsylvania, School of Arts and Sciences, Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching by Affiliated Faculty in 2005 the Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence by Non-Standing Faculty in 2011 and the Irving B. Kravis Prize for Distinction in Undergraduate Teaching in the Economics Department in 2012.

Her research interests are in health economics. In particular she studied risk selection in the health insurance market, the connection between health insurance and the provision of care and the link between hospitals and quality of healthcare. Recent developments in the health care industry have encouraged her to look at Hospitalist (hospital based physicians) in order to understand the growth of this specialty, the scope of their work and any implication of this change to quality of care provided in the hospital.

Dr. Stein was introduced to economics many years ago while studying to be a hotel manager. She was enthralled with the discipline that explains so much of life with these clear logical tools and decided to change her study path to follow her passion. She is thrilled to share with you, via Coursera, the insights economics has to offer.