The Economics Department is saddened to share the passing of esteemed faculty member Kate Ho, the John L. Weinberg Professor of Economics and Business Policy at Princeton University and the co-director of the university’s Center for Health and Wellbeing.

Professor Ho’s research focused on the industrial organization of the medical care market. She made seminal contributions to modeling bargaining between insurers and hospitals and to modeling competition between insurers, physician incentives, and drug pricing. Her most recent interest and research centered on drug pricing—how pharmacies and insurers develop formularies and how that translates to prices.

Ho was an essential provider of public goods as a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a research associate of the NBER, a co-editor of Econometrica, an editor of the RAND Journal of Economics, and a co-editor of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. In 2006, Ho received the Richard Stone Prize in Applied Econometrics for her paper, “The Welfare Effects of Restricted Hospital Choice in the US Medical Care Market.” International Health Economics Association (iHEA) awarded Ho the Arrow Award for Best Health Economics Paper in 2010 for her paper “Insurer-Provider Networks in the Medical Care Market.” She received the Frisch Medal in 2020, awarded to the authors of an outstanding paper published in Econometrica, for her paper titled “Insurer Competition in Health Care Markets.”

Ho earned her undergraduate degree in mathematics from Cambridge University and her Ph.D. in business economics from Harvard University. Prior to her career in academia, Ho served as Chief of Staff to the Minister of State for Health for the UK Government Department of Health.

Ho was an exemplary scholar, a devoted teacher, and a tremendous adviser—generous with her time and always willing to listen and offer advice. In 2023, Ho received the Economics Department’s Best Advisor Award from graduate students and the Rosen Prize for undergraduate teaching. Her mentorship of students and junior faculty will have a lasting impact on the field, as will her contributions to the research community. She will be deeply missed.