We empirically analyze the welfare effects of cross-firm bundling in the pharmaceutical industry. Physicians often treat patients with "cocktail" regimens that combine two or more drugs. Firms cannot price discriminate because each drug is produced by a different firm and a physician creates the...

This paper seeks to understand the impact of the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility (Flex) Program on hospital choice and consumer welfare for rural residents. The Flex Program created a new class of hospital, the Critical Access Hospital (CAH), which receives more generous Medicare...

The average price of treating a colorectal cancer patient with chemotherapy increased from about $100 in 1993 to $36,000 in 2005, due largely to the approval and widespread use of five new drugs between 1996 and 2004. We examine whether the substantial increase in spending has been worth it....

Medicareamp;apos;s Part D offers heavily subsidized new drug coverage to 22.5 million seniors to date, of whom 16.5 million are in stand-alone drug plans (Department of Health and Human Services, 2006). The government delegated the delivery of the benefit to private insurance companies arguing...

Motivated by widely publicized concerns that there are quot;too manyquot; plans, we structurally estimate (and validate) an equilibrium model of the Medicare Part D market to study the welfare impacts of two feasible, similar-sized approaches for reducing choice. One reduces the maximum number...

Many countries use uniform cost-effectiveness criteria to determine whether to adopt a new medical technology for the entire population. This approach assumes homogeneous preferences for expected health benefits and side effects. We examine whether new prescription drugs generate welfare gains...

The growth of health care spending has been a longstanding policy concern. Over the years, several innovations have been proposed to lower levels of health care spending; however, their impact has been limited and not sustained over time. Costly new technology, while often an improvement to...