Yao Ying (Appointed in AY2025)
Participant Profile
Yao Ying
Faculty of Economics Associate ProfessorSpecialization: Health Economics. Received Ph.D. from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in 2015. Served as a Research Associate at the Asian Development Bank Institute, a Project Lecturer at the Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, and a Senior Researcher at the Asian Growth Research Institute before assuming current position in 2025. *Profile and position are as of the time of the interview.
Yao Ying
Faculty of Economics Associate ProfessorSpecialization: Health Economics. Received Ph.D. from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in 2015. Served as a Research Associate at the Asian Development Bank Institute, a Project Lecturer at the Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, and a Senior Researcher at the Asian Growth Research Institute before assuming current position in 2025. *Profile and position are as of the time of the interview.
Analyzing Social Issues Through Health Economics to Find Insights That Contribute to People's Health
Research Themes and How I Encountered Them
My theme is health economics. I started my research after being exposed to news about soaring medical costs and disparities in access. In particular, I became interested in the problem in China known as "kanbing nan, kanbing gui" (difficulty in receiving medical care and high costs). Why do these issues arise? What kind of systems and incentives influence people's behavior? I began working in this field after learning that such questions can be analyzed from an economic perspective, focusing on the structure of healthcare systems.
The Appeal and Fascination of the Research Theme
The appeal of health economics lies in the fact that research results can directly influence policy and people's lives and health. For example, the results of cost-effectiveness analyses determine whether new drugs are covered by insurance, and research on the allocation of medical resources provides suggestions for the question of "who should be saved with a limited budget." Another characteristic is its interdisciplinarity, which incorporates public health and data analysis methods based on economics to capture real-world medical problems from multiple perspectives. I find it fascinating as a form of "jitsugaku (science)" where theory and practice are connected.
Message to Students
Studying health economics does not mean you will become healthy immediately. However, you will gain the ability to think from an economic perspective about questions such as why medical costs continue to rise and why the price of the same medicine differs from country to country. I myself entered this field using such questions as a starting point. I hope to explore with all of you the fun of deciphering the mechanisms of society using "why" as a guide.