Nathaniel Breg

Nate Breg is an associate in the economics practices at Cornerstone Research. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Department of Health Policy and the Palo Alto VA. He earned his PhD at Carnegie Mellon University. 

His interest in health care providers intersects with questions from labor economics and industrial organization. Nate's current research investigates how providers respond to incentives, how they decide to adopt new technology, and how health care services affect local economies and local health. He is a 2020-2021 recipient of the Fellowship in Digital Health from CMU's Center for Machine Learning and Health. 

Research interests: health economics, labor economics, industrial organization, productivity, reimbursement and regulation, imperfect competition, organizational economics

Working Papers

• Pass-through to Patients: What Matters to Public Managers under Capitation in the Veterans Health Administration (working paper)

• How Much is Too Much? Assessing the Efficiency of Medical Technology Diffusion (working paper)

Selected Work in Progress

• Substitution when a Wider-Scope Technology Becomes Available: Evidence from Robotic Hysterectomy (draft available upon request)

• The Impact of Public Finance of Hospitals on Mortality: Evidence from the Hill-Burton Program (draft under revision)

• Does Health Care Employment Help Regional Economies Weather Recessions? with Marty Gaynor and Brian Kovak (draft available upon request)

Prior Experience

Nate has a B.A. from Tufts University, Medford, MA, where he majored in economics and history.

He previously worked at RTI International on evaluations of government health care initiatives, prospective payment systems, and health care delivery quality measures, employing econometrics and other quantitative methods. His clients included the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE).