This paper studies how patent rights and price regulation affect how fast new drugs are launched in different countries, using newly constructed data on launches of 642 new drugs in 76 countries for the period 1983-2002, and information on the duration and content of patent and price control...

We analyse the major economic issues raised by the 1997 Tobacco Resolution and the ensuing proposed legislation that were intended to settle tobacco litigation in the United States. By settling litigation largely in return for tax increases, the Resolution was a superb example of a "win-win"...

Domestic products have a disproportionately high market share on many goods markets. We examine the contribution of preferences to such "home bias", using detailed data on wine sales in New Hampshire (weekly sales by brand by store for one year). In counterfactual simulations, where we use the...

Two-way trade in (almost) homogenous products has ambiguous welfare effects if entry is restricted. We examine Swedish imports of bottled water to investigate whether transport cost losses from trade outweigh the partial equilibrium gains from trade (stronger competition and more brands to...

This paper considers buyer power in the presence of upstream competition to supply a homogeneous product. A likely consequence of upstream competition is that each supplier is uncertain of its final output, because it does not know how many downstream buyers will select it as a seller. We...

Did the rise in anti-American sentiment caused by the Iraq war affect sales of US goods abroad? We address this question using data on soft drink and fabric detergent sales in nine Arab countries. We find a statistically significant negative impact of the war on sales of US soft drinks in seven...

Recent years have witnessed an increased interest, by competition agencies, in assessing the competitive effects of partial acquisitions. We propose an empirical structural methodology to examine quantitatively the unilateral impact of partial acquisitions involving pure financial interests...

The growth of private-equity investment strategies in which firms often hold partial ownership interests in competing firms has led competition agencies to take an increased interest in assessing the competitive effects of partial horizontal acquisitions. We propose a methodology to evaluate the...

Self-reported data on sexual behaviors have been criticized to be unreliable. In recent studies, risky sexual behaviors have therefore been measured using biomarkers for curable sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Nevertheless, no previous research have tested how reliable such data are. In...

This paper provides evidence on household responses to the relaxation of one barrier constraining adoption of health practices - lack of information - in a resource constrained setting. It examines the effects of a randomized intervention in Malawi which provides mothers with information on...