Writing
Writing
I write about economics, technology, health, institutions, public value and futures — particularly where ideas from one field illuminate problems in another.
Most of my current writing lives on external platforms. This page points to it rather than reproducing it, while also collecting a small number of books, chapters and longer-form pieces from earlier work.
Featured book
Health Taxes: Policy and Practice
Jeremy A. Lauer, Franco Sassi, Agnès Soucat and Angeli Vigo, editors. World Scientific / World Health Organization / Imperial College London, 2023. Lead editor.
Developed through a multi-year collaboration involving the World Health Organization and Imperial College London, Health Taxes: Policy and Practice was the first global in-depth treatment of health taxes as a distinct domain of social policy. The book brings together economics, public health, taxation, political economy, governance, trade law and public finance to examine when and how fiscal policy can be used to improve health.
As lead editor, I helped shape the book’s overall argument and structure and contributed to several chapters, including the Introduction, a chapter extending the idea of health taxation beyond tobacco, alcohol and sugary drinks to other harmful activities, and the concluding chapter, “The Future of Health Taxes: Helping It Happen.”
- View book
- WHO
- World Scientific
Featured collaboration
Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy
E. Glen Weyl and Audrey Tang
I was a contributor to Plurality, E. Glen Weyl and Audrey Tang’s exploration of how digital technologies might support rather than undermine social cooperation and democracy.
By the project’s own plurality-credit system, I was the fifth most significant contributor (after Weyl and Tang) to the writing of the book. I authored Chapter 6-2, “Health” with Geordan Shannon.
The project sits at an intersection that increasingly interests me: technology, institutions and the design of systems that enable people to solve collective problems.
- Read Plurality
- Read Chapter 6-2: Health
THOUGHTS ON COVID-19
What can we learn from previous pandemics and from the response to COVID-19 so far?
Jeremy A. Lauer. Fraser of Allander Economic Commentary. 2020. Essay.
Written during the first months of COVID-19, this essay asked why a pandemic that had been repeatedly anticipated nevertheless caught governments and institutions so badly prepared. It considers preparedness, institutional learning, uncertainty and the recurring gap between knowing that a risk exists and organizing effectively to meet it.
- Read the essay
From health to the economy
Health Employment and Economic Growth: An Evidence Base
World Health Organization. 2017.
I was a principal contributor to the economic analysis underpinning the work of the High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth, and lead author of two chapters.
- View the WHO book
Chapter 7
Pathways: the health system, health employment, and economic growth
Jeremy A. Lauer, Agnès Soucat, Edson Araújo and David Weakliam
An attempt to map the causal pathways through which health systems and health employment can affect economic growth and broader welfare — including productivity, investment, public goods and positive externalities.
- Read Chapter 7
Chapter 9
Paying for needed health workers for the SDGs: an analysis of fiscal and financial space
Jeremy A. Lauer, Agnès Soucat, Edson Araújo, Melanie Y. Bertram, Tessa Edejer, Callum Brindley, Elina Dale and Amanda Tan
An analysis of whether countries could finance the additional health workforce required to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, distinguishing the underlying need for resources from governments’ capacity to mobilize them.
- Read Chapter 9
Current writing
Most of my current writing will be published on external platforms, with this page pointing to it rather than reproducing it. Here are some of my new essays.
Substack · September 2026
So AI agents can coordinateOn what it means for autonomous AI systems to work together, and why coordination among agents may reshape institutions and markets.
Substack · September 2026
How $1 million became $75 trillionA reflection on scale, compounding and the surprising pathways through which small ideas or investments can grow into enormous social value.
Substack · August 2026
The Singularity Will Be BoringOn AI policy, an internal discussion at Anthropic, and why the singularity may arrive more quietly than we expect.
Substack · July 2026
An economy of and for healthHealth is created through multiple, interconnected systems: from our individual biology, through our family and community interactions, to wider ecological and planetary systems.
Substack · July 2026
The quest to value planetary healthReimagining health impact and funding.