We analyze the effects on consumers of an extreme policy experiment -- Napsterizing' pharmaceuticals -- whereby all patent rights on branded prescription drugs are eliminated for both existing and future prescription drugs without compensation to the patent holders. The question of whether this...

The literature on the health economics of smoking presents two principal facts: that smoking increases health care costs, and that restrictions on smoking lead to reductions in smoking prevalence and intensity. Some researchers have hypothesized that these two facts, in combination, allow the...

We analyze the effects on consumers of an extreme policy experiment -- Napsterizing' pharmaceuticals -- whereby all patent rights on branded prescription drugs are eliminated for both existing and future prescription drugs without compensation to the patent holders. The question of whether this...

We analyze the effects of a hypothetical change from the status quo with patent protection on pharmaceuticals to a world in which all patent rights on both existing and future branded drugs would be eliminated. Our analysis takes into account stylized facts concerning the nature of competition...

This study analyzes the effects of tobacco excise tax changes on mortality due to heart disease, cancer, and asthma. Reduced form regressions of mortality rates on tax data for the years 1954-1988, with controls for state, year, income, and unobserved persistence, indicate that tax increases...

We propose an exchange rate model which is a hybrid of the conventional specification with monetary fundamentals and the Evans-Lyons microstructure approach. It argues that the failure of the monetary model is principally due to private preference shocks which render the demand for money...

This paper addresses currency competition from an information perspective. Transactions in traditional models do not convey information, so transaction costs -- the driver of competition outcomes -- are driven by market size. In our model transactions do convey information (consistent with...