Lowell Taylor

Lowell Taylor is the H. John Heinz III University Professor of Economics at the Heinz College, where he has been on the faculty since 1990.

He is also a Senior Fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago, where he serves as Principal Investigator of the 1997 National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY97). He previously served as a senior economist with President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors. In 2011, 2012, and 2017 he was Visiting Professor at the Economics Department, University of California Berkeley.

Taylor’s research interests are in labor economics, economic demography, and health economics. Recent research includes studies examining public education and intergenerational mobility; racial differences in mortality; affirmative action in Indian higher education; the impact of the Great Migration on the mortality of African Americans; the impact of firm entry regulation on job creation in Portugal; inefficiency in U.S. health insurance markets; and the relative efficacy of healthcare provided by the Veterans Health Administration.

He is the recipient of the 11th Annual Health Care Research Award from the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) for “Physician Incentives in Health Maintenance Organizations” (Journal of Political Economy, 2004), the 20th Annual Arrow Award from the International Health Economics Association for “Unhealthy Insurance Markets: Search Frictions and the Cost and Quality of Health Insurance” (American Economic Review, 2011), and the 30th Annual NIHCM Research Award for "Is the a VA Advantage? Evidence from Dually Eligible Veterans" (American Economic Review, 2023).

Taylor is a four-time winner of the top teaching award at the Heinz College (1994, 2004, 2007, and 2021).