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April 9, 2008
An investigation into the abundance of healthcare options for seniors and into the consequent confusion that often impedes sound selection of coverage will be conducted by a team of academics that includes Sudipta Sarangi, an associate professor of economics in LSU’s E. J. Ourso College of Business.
Prompted by reports of an aging population overwhelmed by the flood of prospective providers and by the counter-intuitive economic concepts that suggests, Sarangi and his fellow scholars resolved to undertake an in-depth study into both the theory behind this seeming paradox and potential remedies for it.
“This project aims to understand how people make decisions, particularly when faced with information overload,” Sarangi said. “We believe that too much choice may not be a good idea and hope to illustrate this in a precise way through the use of techniques from experimental economics where people get paid based on their decisions.”
Working with professors Mike Shor from Vanderbilt University, Tibor Besedes from Georgia Tech and Cary Deck from the University of Arkansas, Sarangi will explore how the ways in which choices are presented actually influence the perception of those options. Such an examination has the dual promise of being both disciplinarily noteworthy and civically beneficial, revealing truths about the science of decision-marking while optimizing the well-being of the elderly.
Sarangi is the author of several field-related papers published in a variety of respected journals. His specializations include industrial organization and applied game theory, and his work has been recognized through a number of professional awards during his time in Baton Rouge and elsewhere.
Grant money totaling $360,000 was awarded given to the team, approximately $100,000 of which went directly to Sarangi, by the National Institutes of Health. The NIA is a national medical research agency devoted to salutary research and awareness campaigns.
For more information about the E. J. Ourso College’s Department of Economics, visit www.bus.lsu.edu/economics.
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