Health systems around world are adopting cost-effectiveness (CE) analysis to inform decisions about access and reimbursement. We study how CE thresholds imposed by health plans affect drug producers' pricing and access to new drugs. Analysing a sequential pricing game between an incumbent...

Health systems around world are increasingly adopting cost-effectiveness (CE) analysis to inform decisions about access and reimbursement. We study how CE thresholds imposed by a health plan for granting reimbursement affect drug producers pricing incentives and patients access to new drugs....

We study the effects of horizontal mergers when firms compete on quality and price. Two key factors are identified: (i) the magnitude of variable quality costs, and (ii) the relative magnitudes of cross-quality and cross-price effects on demand. The merging firms will increase (reduce) both...