Last updated September 2026.
I am an economist at the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) specializing in the intersection of health economics, public policy, and national economic accounting. My research utilizes causal inference and big data integration to examine how supply-side interventions, pricing structures, and environmental shocks impact healthcare, maternal and infant health, and broader consumer behavior. Additionally, I work on advancing the frontier of economic measurement by developing frameworks to value human capital as a national asset and using real-time card transaction data to nowcast consumer spending.
My work has been published in journals such as Health Affairs, Health Economics, and Journal of Economic Perspectives, as well as circulated as NBER Working Papers.
Publications
Chang, Eunsik, Kendall Kennedy, and Justine Mallatt. "Lead in Drinking Water and Child Health: Evidence From Jackson, Mississippi." Health Economics (2026).
Ackley, Calvin, Abe Dunn, Esha Dwibedi, Lasanthi Fernando, Jonah Joffee, Justine Mallatt, Joseph L Dieleman, and Marcia R Weaver. "The value of health care in the United States: changes in lifetime spending and health-adjusted life-expectancy, 1996 to 2016." Value in Health (2026).
Mallatt, Justine, Abe Dunn and Lasanthi Fernando. "Consumer Out-Of-Pocket Drug Prices Grew Faster Than Prices Faced by Insurers After Accounting For Rebates, 2007-2020: Article examines out-of-pocket drug prices." Health Affairs 43.9 (2024): 1284-1289.
Maclean, Johanna Catherine, Justine Mallatt, Christopher J. Ruhm, and Kosali Simon. "The Opioid Crisis, Health, Healthcare, and Crime: A Review of Quasi-Experimental Studies." The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (2022), 703(1), 15-49. Link to draft.
Abraham, Katharine G., and Justine Mallatt. "Measuring Human Capital." Journal of Economic Perspectives 36.3 (2022): 103-30. Link to draft.
Mallatt, Justine. "Policy-induced substitution to illicit drugs and implications for law enforcement activity." American Journal of Health Economics 8.1 (2022): 30-64. Link.
Maclean, Johanna Catherine, Justine Mallatt, Christopher J. Ruhm, and Kosali Simon. "Economic Studies on the Opioid Crisis: Costs, Causes, and Policy Responses." In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance. 2021. Link to draft.
Working Papers
"A Satellite Account for Human Capital at BEA: Incorporating Investment In Human Capital into GDP." Draft Available. 2026. Published in BEA Working Paper Series.
"The Use of Real-Time Spending Sources for Economic Measurement: An Analysis Using Multiple Data Sources." Draft available. 2025. Published in BEA Working Paper Series.
"State Insulin Price Cap Levels and Out-of-Pocket Spending," (with Paul Eliason and Eli Liebman). Under review. 2025.
In Progress
"The Impact of the ACA Medicaid Fee Bump on Provider Participation, Beneficiary Care, and Medicaid Payments," (with Calvin Ackley). Draft forthcoming. 2025.
Older Working Papers
“The Effect of Supply-Side Opioid Legislation on Opioid-Related Business Establishments”
"The Effect of Pharmacist Refusal Clauses on Contraceptive Substitution and Birthrates"
Keg Registration Laws and Underage Drinking, Fatal Car Crashes, and Crime Offenses (with Jillian Carr) (early draft, please email if interested)
First Order Effects of the OxyContin Reformulation: Legal Substitutes for OxyContin (early draft, please email if interested)