We study the effect of price caps on the provision of costly effort by pharmaceutical firms using variation in drug discounts generated by a price regulation program that allows eligible hospitals to purchase outpatient drugs at steep discounts. These discounts directly affect drug...

We examine manufacturers' decisions of whether and how to offer their products for sale over the internet. Manufacturers that rely on promotion of their products by brick and mortar retailers must consider the possibility that internet retailers can free ride off of that promotional effort. This...

This paper studies the market provision of a specific type of public good: radio and television broadcasts. Its main focus is to explore the ability of the market to provide broadcasting efficiently in a world in which broadcasters earn revenues by selling time to advertisers and advertisements...

While the tobacco industry is among the most substantial and successful economic enterprises, tobacco consumption kills more people than any other product. Economic analysis of tobacco product markets, particularly for cigarettes, has contributed considerable insight to debates about the...

Tobacco advertising is a public health issue if these activities increase smoking. Although public health advocates assert that tobacco advertising does increase smoking, there is significant empirical literature that finds little or no effect of tobacco advertising on smoking. In this paper,...

The world's population is living longer but retiring earlier, and vast numbers of adults now spend as much as 1/3 of their lifetimes relying on public and private retirement benefits. Consequently, labor economists are interested in the forces driving retirement behavior, seeking to understand...

What accounts for the diversity and limited concentration that has long characterized the organization of the advertising agency industry? This question is addressed by treating an advertising agency as a multiproduct firm. The firm's product line or service mix is defined in terms of the set of...

The purpose of this paper is to empirically estimate the effect of alcohol advertising on motor vehicle fatalities. The concept of an industry level advertising response function is developed and other empirical issues in estimating the effects of advertising are reviewed. The data set consists...

How important are economies of scale and scope in advertising agency operations? This paper reports an econometric study undertaken to address this question. Cost models are formulated which represent how the principal component of agency costs, employment level, varies according to the mix of...

Online sources sometimes publish information that is false or intentionally misleading. We study the role of social networks and advertising on social networks in the dissemination of false news stories about childhood vaccines. We document that anti-vaccine Facebook groups disseminate false...