About
Professor Joan Costa-Font (he/him, FREcon) is a highly cited economist, a social scientist recognised for his academic contributions to health economics, public policy and ageing, particularly at the intersection of health and behavioural economics and political economy. He leads the Ageing and Health Incentives Lab (AHIL) and co-leads the Perceptions of Inequality programme at the International Inequalities Institute and Ageing@LSE. He is a research fellow at IZA and CESifo. He serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of the Economics of Ageing and Section Editor for PLOS Aging and Health. His policy and business engagement includes contributing to the WHO Global Report on Long-Term Care Financing (2023), serving on the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Economics for Environment, Climate Change and Health (WHO TAG-EconECH), and leading the LSE–Vitality programme on behavioural incentives for long-term health.
His research focuses on the economics of healthy ageing and health disadvantage, emphasising socio-economic and behavioural drivers of preventive behaviours—including screenings, vaccination, sleep, physical activity, alcohol use, and smoking. He has published extensively in leading field journals (e.g. Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Journal of Comparative Economics) and general interest journals (e.g. Journal of the European Economic Association, Economica, European Economic Review, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). He has authored and edited several books with Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press, including The Political Economy of Health and Health Care (2020) and Behavioural Incentive Design for Health Policy (2023).
PhD Supervision Areas:
- Healthy ageing and the later-life effects of economic policies
- Global financing and organisation of long-term care
- Political, economic and behavioural drivers of health inequality
- Incentives for and constraints on healthy habits and time use
Teaching
Coordinator of the LSE Health Policy -Tsinghua
University program
HP429 Behavioral Incentives in Health and Health Care
HP433 Health Care Regulation
HP4D6E Behavioural Insights for Health Incentive Design
HP500 Advanced Health Policy and Economics
Affiliations
Fellow, CESifo Munich
Fellow, IZA Bonn
Affiliate, Medication Outcomes Centre, University of California San Francisco
Follow me
Bluesky: @jcosta-font.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/jcosta-font.bsky.social)
Expertise
Ageing, Long Term Care, Behavioural Incentives, Health Inequality, Health Behaviours, Overweight, Sleep, Nutrition, Smoking, Alcohol, Institutional Reforms and Health Disadvantage, Family Health Behaviours, Gender and Health