Jinyeong Son
Postdoctoral Fellow in Health Care Markets, Policy, and Regulation
Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School
Email: json@hks.harvard.edu
View my CV: here
I am on the 2025-2026 job market
Embedded Files
Job Market Paper
The Impact of Medical Innovation on Health and Disability [JMP]
(with Marika Cabral and Marcus Dillender)
Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of one of the most important surgical innovations in recent decades: the move from traditional open surgery to minimally invasive surgery. Using an instrumental variables strategy along with administrative data on injured workers undergoing orthopedic surgery, we quantify the impact of minimally invasive surgery (compared to analogous open surgery) on subsequent health care use, return to work, long-term disability, and social insurance payments. The findings suggest minimally invasive surgery reduces health care spending in the two years following surgery by 30%—through both reduced complexity of the surgery itself and large reductions in subsequent health care use. Analysis by type of service suggests minimally invasive surgery reduces subsequent office visits, opioid use, and revision surgeries. Moreover, we document that minimally invasive surgery also improves broader measures of patient health and disability—speeding return to work (by 37 days), reducing the severity of permanent disabilities (by 30%), and reducing associated social insurance costs (by 28%). We conclude by documenting trends in the adoption of minimally invasive surgeries and exploring the policy implications of our findings in light of these trends.
Working Papers
Every Year Counts: The Long-Run Consequences of Pregnancy Timing among Teenagers [ungated version]
What Happens When Drug Companies Can Cover Your Deductible? How State Bans on Copay Accumulators Affect Healthcare Utilization
(with Leemore Dafny, Lynn Hua, and Olivia Zhao) (Draft Available Upon Request)
Publications
Partial Outsourcing of Public Programs: Evidence on Determinants of Choice in Medicare
Forthcoming in The Review of Economics and Statistics
(with Marika Cabral and Colleen Carey) [ungated version] [NBER WP #31141]
Do Mandated Health Insurance Benefits for Diabetes Save Lives?
Journal of Public Economics, 2022, Vol.216(104762) [ungated version] [published version]
Living Environments and Child Development: Comparing Two Groups of Out-of-Home Children
Journal of Human Capital, 2021, Vol.15(2), p.346-371
(with Ick-Joong Chung, Jungmin Lee, Yasuyuki Sawada, and Seung-Gyu Sim) [published version]
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