What has been the effect of competition from parallel imports on prices of locally-sourced on-patent drugs? Did the 2002 Swedish mandatory substitution reform increase this competition? To answer these questions, we carried out difference-in-differences estimation on monthly data for a panel of...

Given the cost of trade and availability of pharmaceuticals, the driving force for parallel trade is the price difference between the source (exporting) and the destination (importing) country. An increase in the price difference or in the availability of pharmaceuticals for parallel trade...

In this paper, we analyze the welfare effects of publicly provided health care in an economy where the consumers have "present-biased" preferences due to quasi-hyperbolic discounting. The analysis is based on a two-type model with asymmetric information between the government and the private...

This paper uses a labor supply model that incorporates waiting for health care to derive an empirical specification for sick leave and to estimate the impact of waiting for health care on the duration of sick leave. In the estimations, we use the 2002 sample of the RFV-LS register database,...

We study how the optimal public provision of health care depends on whether or not individuals have an option to seek publicly financed treatment in other regions. We find that, relative to the first-best solution, the government has an incentive to over-provide health care to low-income...

The market share for parallel imports when pharmacies can negotiate discounts with parallel traders and sellers of locally sourced products is analyzed both theoretically and empirically. The theoretical model shows that, with discount negotiations, pharmacies will sell locally sourced products...

This paper deals with optimal income taxation based on a model with households where men and women allocate their time between market work and household production, and where households differ depending on which spouse has comparative advantage in market work. The purpose is to analyze the tax...

This short paper analyzes whether a federal transfer system can be designed to increase welfare, when state governments create political budget cycles to increase the likelihood of reelection. The results show how the federal government may announce a transfer scheme in advance for the...

This paper deals with the optimal provision of a state-variable public good in a two-type model, when the consumers have present-biased preferences due to quasi-hyperbolic discounting. The results show that the preference for immediate gratification facing the (mimicking) high-ability type...

In democracies, elections are the primary mechanism for making politicians act in voters' interests, but voters are unable to prevent that some resources are diverted to political rents. With two levels of government, the rents are reduced if voters require higher beneficial public expenditures...