Consumption patterns can be indicative of how a consumer wants to be perceived by others. In this paper, I study markets where consumers are heterogeneous with respect to both their concerns for the quality of goods and the image associated with buying them. Consumers with a taste for quality...

This paper evaluates the impact of reference pricing on prices and co-payments in the (German) market for off-patent pharmaceuticals. We present a theoretical model with price-sensitive and loyal consumers that shows that a decrease in the reference price affects the consumers' co-payments in a...

Is the reputation of a firm tradeable when the previous owner has to retire even though ownership change is observable? We consider a competitive market in which a share of owners must retire in each period. New owners, observing only recent profits, bid for the firms on sale. Customers are...

In the recent last years, in particular in the aftermath of the global financial and economic crisis, many countries initiated economic recovery plans with a major focus on stimulating green entrepreneurial activities to revive economic growth. Further, the recovery plans intend to improve a...

We investigate the welfare impact of parallel imports using a large panel data set containing monthly information on sales, ex-factory prices, and further product characteristics for all 700 antidiabetic drugs sold in Germany between 2004 and 2010. We estimate a two-stage nested logit model of...

Reference prices constitute a main determinant of patient health care reimbursement in many countries. We study the effects of a change from an "external" (based on a basket of prices in other countries) to an "internal" (based on comparable domestic products) reference price system. We find...

Within recent years pharmaceuticals have come into focus as contaminants of the environment (see for example Kümmerer, K. editor: Pharmaceuticals in the Environment). At the same time the issue of sustainable chemistry gained momentum. Bringing both together would result in sustainable...