For decades, the US public and private sectors have committed substantial resources towards cancer research, but the societal payoff has not been well-understood. We quantify the value of recent gains in cancer survival, and analyze the distribution of value among various stakeholders. Between...

This paper attempts to quantify the social, private, and public-finance values of reducing obesity through pharmaceutical and medical interventions. We find that the total social value of bariatric surgery is large for treated patients, with incremental social cost-effectiveness ratios typically...

We explore how and to what extent prescription drug insurance expansions affect incentives for pharmaceutical advertising. When insurance expansions make markets more profitable, firms respond by boosting advertising. Theory suggests this effect will be magnified in the least competitive drug...

We obtain estimates of associations between statin use and health behaviors. Statin use is associated with a small increase in BMI and moderate (20–33%) increases in the probability of being obese. Statin use was also associated with a significant (e.g., 15% of mean) increase in moderate...

Who pays the healthcare costs associated with obesity? Among workers, this is largely a question of the incidence of the costs of employer-sponsored coverage. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we find that the incremental...

Abstract Scientific research and private-sector technological innovation differ in objectives, constraints, and organizational forms. Scientific research may thus not be driven by the direct practical benefit to others in the way that private-sector innovation is. Alternatively, some - yet...

It is well-known that pooled insurance coverage can induce people to make inefficiently low investments in self-protective activities. We identify another ex ante moral hazard that runs in the opposite direction. Lower levels of self-protection and the associated chronic conditions and...