Kathleen McGarry

Professor of Economics

Kathleen McGarry is a Professor of Economics at UCLA and a Research Associate at the NBER. From 2007-2009 she was the Joel Z. and Susan Hyatt, 1972 Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College and previously served as a senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. She has had fellowships from the Brookdale Foundation and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

McGarry’s research focuses on the well-being of the elderly with particular attention paid to public and private transfers, including the Medicare and SSI programs and the transfer of resources within families. Her research combines work on the financial aspects of aging with issues related to health economics to examine insurance coverage among the elderly. She has studied the long term care, health, and life insurance markets, as well as the role played by families in providing insurance for their least well-off members. McGarry’s current work analyzes the importance of end of life medical expenses, particularly expenses associated with nursing homes and home health care, and differences in spending by disability status.