The misuse of prescription opioids has become a serious epidemic in the US. In response, states have implemented Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs), which record a patient's opioid prescribing history. While few providers participated in early systems, states have recently begun to...

Despite the presence of Medicare, out-of-pocket medical spending is a large expenditure risk facing the elderly. While women live longer than men, elderly women incur higher out-of-pocket medical spending than men at each age. In this paper, we examine whether differences in marital status and...

Consumers need information to compare alternatives for markets to function efficiently. Recognizing this, public policies often pair competition with easy access to comparative information. The implicit assumption is that comparison friction--the wedge between the availability of comparative...

This paper analyzes pharmaceutical pricing between and within countries to achieve second best static and dynamic efficiency. We distinguish countries with and without universal insurance, because insurance undermines patients' price sensitivity, potentially leading to prices above second-best...

We estimate a model of drug demand and supply that incorporates insurance, advertising, and competition between branded and generic drugs within and across therapeutic classes. We use data on antiulcer drugs from 1991 to 2010. Our simulations show generics and ``me-too'' drugs each increased...

This paper constructs a rich model of saving for retired single people. Our framework allows for bequest motives and heterogeneity in medical expenses and life expectancies. We estimate the model using AHEAD data and the method of simulated moments. The data show that out-of-pocket medical...

Rewarding inventors with inefficient monopoly power has long been regarded as the price of encouraging innovation. Public prescription drug insurance escapes that trade-off and achieves an elusive goal: lowering static deadweight loss, while simultaneously encouraging dynamic investments in...

People have heterogenous life expectancies: women live longer than men, rich people live longer than poor people, and healthy people live longer than sick people. People are also subject to heterogenous out-of-pocket medical expense risk. We construct a rich structural model of saving behavior...

We explore the effects of recent Medicaid expansions on Medicaid-financed prescriptions for evidence-based smoking cessation medications. We estimate differences-in-differences models using administrative data on the universe of prescription medications sold in retail and online pharmacies for...

Despite a vast literature on the determinants of prescription opioid use, the role of health insurance plans has received little attention. We study how the form of Medicare beneficiaries' drug coverage affects the volume of opioids they consume. We find that enrollment in Medicare Advantage,...