We study the relationship between regulatory regimes and pharmaceutical firms’ pricing strategies using a unique policy experiment from Norway, which in 2003 introduced a reference price (RP) system called “index pricing” for a sub-sample of off-patent pharmaceuticals, replacing the...

We analyse how equilibrium locations in location-price games à la Hotelling are affected when firms acquire inputs through bilateral monopoly relations with suppliers. Assuming a duopoly downstream market, we consider the case of two independent input suppliers bargaining with both downstream...

We analyse how a patent-holding (incumbent) firm may strategically use advertising ex ante to a¤ect the R&D investments in new (di¤eren- tiated) products, and thus the ex post market structure in the industry. We derive exact conditions for advertising and R&D being substitute strategies for...

In a model of spatial competition, we analyse the equilibrium outcomes in markets where the product price is exogenous. Using an extended version of the Hotelling model, we assume that firms choose their locations and the quality of the product they supply. We derive the optimal price set by a...

A health policy reform aiming to reduce hospital waiting times and sickness absences, the Faster Return to Work (FRW) scheme, is evaluated by creating treatment and control groups to facilitate causal interpretations of the empirical results. We use a unique dataset on individuals where we match...

Physicians are key personnel in a sector which is important due to its size as well as the quality of service it provides. We estimate the labor supply of physicians employed at hospitals in Norway, using personnel register data merged with other public records. A dynamic labor supply equation...

This paper estimates treatment effects for back pain patients using observational data from a low-key social insurance reform in Norway. Using a latent variable model we estimate the average treatment effects (ATE), the average effect of treatment on the treated (TT), and the distribution of...

This paper analyses the impact of access to health care and economic conditions on health outcomes. Fixed-effects models are estimated using municipality data from 1996 to 2001. Health is proxied by total mortality rates divided into three different causes of death. Access to health care is...

The right to equal treatment, irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status and place of resident, is an important principle for several health care systems. A reform of the Norwegian hospital sector may be used as a relevant experiment for investigating whether centralization of...

This paper analyses the impact of economic conditions and access to primary health care on health outcomes in Norway. Total mortality rates, grouped into four causes of death, were used as proxies for health, and the number of general practitioners (GPs) at the municipality level was used as the...