Laurence Baker, Ph.D. is the Bing Professor of Human Biology and Professor in the Health Policy group at Stanford University. He is a health economist who applies economic and statistical analysis to study challenges facing the health care system. Professor Baker teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at Stanford, and has published widely on a range of health care system and financing issues. He has also served as an advisor on health care issues to the public and private sectors His research examines topics including the effects of financial incentives and organizations on the delivery of health care, technological change in medicine, competition in health care markets, and managed care and insurance plans. Professor Baker also holds appointments as Professor of Economics (by courtesy) at Stanford, Senior Fellow of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA. He is a former Chair of the Department of Health Research and Policy at Stanford. Professor Baker has been the recipient of the ASHE Medal from the American Society of Health Economists. He has also received the Alice S. Hersh Young Investigator Award from AcademyHealth and the National Institute for Health Care Management’s research prize. He is Past President of the American Society of Health Economists, a member of the board of directors of AcademyHealth, and previously served on the board of the International Health Economics Association. Professor Baker received his Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University and his B.A. in Economics and Mathematics from Calvin College.