<italic>This paper considers two paradoxes concerning the relationship between capital investment decisions and competition. First, conventional capital budgeting methods imply that substantial infra-marginal surpluses are attained above the cost of capital, but this is inconsistent with the premise...</italic>

This Handbook chapter surveys the extensive body of research on the economics of the pharmaceutical industry (with peripheral attention paid also to regulated medical devices). Pharmaceuticals is one of the world's most research-intensive industries, generating a continuing steam of new products...

Conflicting trends confound the pharmaceutical industry. The productivity of pharmaceutical innovation has declined in recent years. At the same time, the cohort of large companies who are the leading engines of pharmaceutical R&D has become increasingly concentrated. The concurrent presence of...

This paper analyzes reasons advanced for the recent shortage of influenza vaccine in the United States and numerous other similar shortages in recent years. Explanations have included high regulatory costs, inadequate profitability, and mergers. Using Census data, it shows that vaccine producers...

Discusses Heinrich von Stackelberg as a mathematical economist, referring to his book Marktform und Gleichgewicht. Presents the main theories of rivalrous interaction among business firms and the problems of oligopoly and monopoly. Notes how Stackelberg used indifference curves to map the...

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This paper addresses the role of uncertainty in challenges confronting the US pharmaceutical industry and its regulators. It begins with a macroeconomic overview, showing how rising health care costs, including rising ethical drug costs, squeeze the wage and salary share of national income. It...