Recent litigation against major tobacco companies culminated in a Master Settlement Agreement' (MSA) under which the participating companies agreed to compensate most states for Medicaid expenses. We outline the terms of the settlement and analyze whether it was a move toward economic efficiency...

Received microeconomic theory presumes rational consumers maximize utility over all commodity bundles. Recent analysis, however, suggests that a consumer's status quo may limit economic rationality; quot;biasquot; consumer decisions, and induce serious errors in survey-based valuations of public...

The Supreme Court recently held that in reverse-payment settlements of drug patent disputes, anticompetitive effects can be inferred if the reverse payment exceeds the patent holder's anticipated litigation costs, absent some offsetting justification. Application of this standard is problematic...

Recent litigation against major tobacco companies culminated in a Master Settlement Agreement' (MSA) under which the participating companies agreed to compensate most states for Medicaid expenses. We outline the terms of the settlement and analyze whether it was a move toward economic efficiency...

We estimate the increment in Massachusetts Medicaid program costs attributable to smoking from December 20, 1991, to 1998. We describe how our methods improve upon earlier estimates of analogous costs at the national level. Current costs to the Massachusetts Medicaid program approximate the...