We estimate the effect of information on consumers' willingness to pay for branded goods in physically homogeneous consumer packaged goods categories. In a case study of headache remedies, we find that college education, working in a healthcare occupation, and other proxies for product knowledge...

A lot changed between 2008 and 2015. Lindsay McSweeney's stewardship cemented the importance of CPI Antitrust Chronicle. Standard-essential patents, the smartphone patent wars, and patent trolls thrust themselves onto the IP/antitrust scene. But perhaps the most significant change is the...

We use Danish diabetes registry and health insurance data to analyze the extent, consequences, and determinants of under-use and overuse of oral anti-diabetic drugs. Less than half of patients consume the appropriate amount of medication--between 90% and 110% of the amount prescribed by their...

Sham surgery controls are increasingly used in neurosurgical clinical trials in Parkinson's disease (PD) but remain controversial. We interviewed participants of such trials, specifically examining their understanding and attitudes regarding sham surgery. We conducted semistructured qualitative...

Pharmaceutical firms currently spend over $4 billion on direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs, a nearly 30-fold increase since 1993 that has led to much debate about its value to patients. We examine how DTCA influences drug utilization along the extensive and intensive...

Existing research has focused on why and when firms may choose to access the external technology market. Surprisingly, however, less is known about the reliability of the patents attached to these external technologies in the face of litigation. “Weak” external patents expose a firm to the...

Despite the rapidly aging population, relatively little is known about how cost sharing affects the elderly's medical spending. Exploiting longitudinal claims data and the drastic reduction of coinsurance from 30% to 10% at age 70 in Japan, we find that the elderly's demand responses are...

As states pass regulations to curb opioid abuse, what are the consequences for legitimate pain management? Forty-nine states have adopted prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMP) to detect potentially inappropriate opioid prescribing and use. Several studies have estimated the impact of...