I look at prevention through an economic lens and make three main points. First, those advocating preventive measures are often asked how much money a given measure saves. This question is misguided. Rather preventive measures can be thought of as insurance, with a certain cost in the present...

Improvements in medical treatment have contributed to rising health spending. Yet there is relatively little evidence on whether the spending increase is "worth it" in the sense of producing better health outcomes of commensurate value--a critical question for understanding productivity in the...

Over 2009-2019 the seemingly inexorable rise in health care's share of GDP markedly slowed, both in the US and elsewhere. To address whether this slowdown represents a reduced steady-state growth rate or just a temporary pause we specify and estimate a decomposition of health care spending...

US healthcare is undergoing a period of substantial change, with many hospitals vertically integrating with physician practices. Such integration could improve quality by promoting care coordination, but could also worsen it by impacting care delivery. Evidence on how physicians alter their...

Based on our survey and discussions, we uncovered several thematic opportunities to improve interactions between the FDA and industry and to reduce clinical development times: 1) develop metrics and goals at the FDA for clinical development times in exchange for PDUFA like fees; 2) establish an...

To overcome the problem of insufficient research and development (R&D) on vaccines for diseases concentrated in low-income countries, sponsors could commit to purchase viable vaccines if and when they are developed. One or more sponsors would commit to a minimum price that would be paid per...

Congress enacted and renewed the Prescription Drug User Fee Acts (PDUFA) in 1992, and renewed it in 1997 and 2002, mandating FDA performance goals in reviewing and acting on drug applications within specified time periods. In turn, the FDA was permitted to levy user fees on drug sponsors...

We compute quality-adjusted price indexes for Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) for the period 1999-2004, using data on prices and characteristics of 203 models sold by 12 manufacturers. The PDA market is growing in size, it is technologically dynamic with very substantial changes in measured...

Results of hedonic price regressions for personal computer operating systems and productivity suites advertised in PC World magazine by retail vendors during the time period 1984 to 2000 are reported. Among the quality attribute variables we use are new measures capturing the presence of network...

Objective: The ratio of controller to reliever medication use has been proposed as a measure of treatment quality for asthma patients. In this study we examine the effects of plan level mean out-of-pocket asthma medication patient copayments and other features of benefit plan design on the use...