Research
Dr. Schpero’s research program is focused on the Medicaid program and identifying and testing policy levers to address racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health and health care. Much of his research is designed to inform the optimal allocation of resources to support hospitals and other health care providers that serve low-income and minoritized communities in the United States. In past research, he has studied the drivers of waste in the U.S. health care system and analyzed the effect of key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
As a health economist, Dr. Schpero leverages natural experiments that approximate random exposure to health care programs and policies in order to provide causal estimates to inform decision-making by policymakers and practitioners. He has served as principal investigator on grants from a range of federal and private funders — including the Commonwealth Fund, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities — focused on informing use of policy to improve health care equity in the United States. His research has been published in a number of academic journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Health Affairs; covered by national media outlets, including Bloomberg, Politico, and The Washington Post; and cited in federal regulation and a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He is a co-founder of the Medicaid Data Learning Network, a national collaborative designed to catalyze policy-relevant research on the Medicaid program.
Current Projects:
- Inequality in Hospital Financing
- Innovation Disparities
- Medicaid Managed Care
- Segregation in Care
Bio
Dr. Schpero received his Ph.D. in health policy and economics from Yale University, during which he was also a pre-doctoral fellow in aging and health economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Before coming to Yale, he completed a master's degree and a research fellowship at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice. Dr. Schpero received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College. He currently teaches a course on health policy and economics for the Executive MBA/MS program in Healthcare Leadership.
Distinctions:
- Executive M.B.A./M.S. in Healthcare Leadership Faculty Award, Cornell S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management and Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences (2022)
- Annual Student Prize, International Health Economics Association (2020)
Selected Publications:
Chatterjee P, Schpero WL. Realigning Reality with Intent in Funding Safety-Net Hospitals. JAMA Health Forum. 2023;4(7):e232000.
Chatterjee P, Sinha S, Reszczynski OG, Amin A, Schpero WL. Variation and Changes in the Targeting of Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments to U.S. Hospitals. Health Affairs. 2022;41(12):1781- 1789.
Schpero WL, Chatterjee P. Structural Racial Disparities in the Allocation of Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments. JAMA Network Open. 2022;5(11):e2240328.
Takvorian SU, Guerra CE, Schpero WL. A Hidden Opportunity — Medicaid’s Role in Supporting Equitable Access to Clinical Trials. New England Journal of Medicine. 2021;384(21):1975-1978.
Khullar D, Bond AM, Schpero WL. COVID-19 and the Financial Health of U.S. Hospitals. JAMA. 2020;323(21):2127-2128.