What We Do

We work to achieve our goals through three main components of the WPBA experience:

Events

Events are the first pillar of WPBA’s activities, intended to stimulate discussion and debate between students and leading business and political players on relevant issues each semester, fulfilling goals one and two of our mission. WPBA plans to host a lecture series per semester relating to a core semester topic. This coming year of 2008-2009 will include:

• September 23: Patricia Danzon, Scott Harrington, & Mark Pauly (“Can America Do Better? Insights from Health Economics”)
• November 6: Regina Herzlinger (“Bottom-Up Health Care: The Consumer-Driven Revolution”)
• November: Jacob S. Hacker (“Lessons Learned: The Clinton Debacle & the Future of Health Care”)
• February 26: Jagdish Bhagwati (“Free Trade: The Surprise Solution to the Health Care Crisis”)

Policy

Policy development, the second pillar of WPBA, complements the events by extending the issues discussed by sector leaders with independent research by policy advisors, WPBA members working with Penn professors to develop public policy recommendations to be presented to decision makers at the end of each semester.

External Affairs

The final pillar of WPBA, external affairs, seeks to extend the knowledge gained through events and policy development outside of the Penn community. Activities under consideration include trips to New York City and Washington, D.C., public policy conferences, and collaboration with non-profits organizations.