Lucy Xiaolu Wang

Research areas include innovation and digitization in health care markets.

Dr. Wang's research agenda focuses on the causes and consequences of innovation and digitization in health care markets, particularly in the biopharmaceutical and digital health sectors. She studies theory-motivated empirical questions across institutional contexts in the US and globally. How can we design better institutions to spur technological innovation, licensing, and adoption, at reasonable costs? How can we ensure such life-changing technologies are accessible to needed patients in an equitable manner? How can we optimize the impact of policy interventions with complementary technological assets? How can we unite researchers worldwide to tackle domestic and global disease challenges, with better digital platforms? She tries to answer these questions across various important contexts, including global drug licensing and procurement for major infectious diseases, cannabis legalization, opioid crisis, mental health, and AI-neurosciences. The goal of her research agenda is to understand the economics of innovation in health care markets with complex technologies, heavy regulation, and massive financial burdens that have important implications for patient health and firms’ strategic decisions.

Dr. Wang's research interests in digital health technologies and her current role as a co-founder and inaugural convenor for the international health economics association (IHEA) shows her commitment to digital health research. Her work on innovation and technology creation/diffusion is very relevant as well. In general, Dr. Wang is a fan of life scientists and is eager to learn more about how to use economics tools to facilitate tech innovation and diffusion in health care markets.

Learn more at Wang Research Group

Academic Background

Senior research fellow (postdoc), Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Germany
PhD in Economics, Cornell University, USA
Master in Economics, Duke University, USA
Bachelor in Economics (specialty: insurance), Central University of Finance and Economics, China