The G8 is considering committing to purchase vaccines against diseases concentrated in low-income countries (if and when desirable vaccines are developed) as a way to spur research and development on vaccines for these diseases. Under such an "advance market commitment," one or more sponsors...

Our purpose in this paper is to examine how one might evaluate and measure the contribution of public infrastructure capital on private sector output and productivity growth in Sweden. We do this by specifying and implementing empirically a number of alternative econometric models, using annual...

We examine the role of consumption externalities in the demand for pharmaceuticals at both the brand level and over a therapeutic class of drugs. Externalities emerge when use of a drug by others affects its value, and/or conveys information about efficacy and safety to patients and physicians....

We review in considerable detail the conceptual and measurement issues that underlie construction of medical care price indexes in the US , focusing in particular on the medical care consumer price indexes (MCPIs) and medical-related producer price indexes (MPPIs). We outline salient features of...

We assess size and scope-related economies in the global advertising and marketing services business. A translog cost function is employed wherein a firm's costs vary according to its scale and two dimensions of the scope of its operations. Parameters of the model are estimated via three stage...

The pricing of medical products and services in the U.S. is notoriously complex. In health care, supply prices (those received by the manufacturer) are distinct from demand prices (those paid by the patient) due to health insurance. The insurer, in designing the benefit, decides what prices...

We generalize the stochastic specification to account for first-order vector autocorrelation in the system of portfolio demand equations and test for the validity of the "no autocorrelation" restrictions, in addition to the restricitions on the demand system implied by theory. When testing for...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expends considerable efforts in regulating medications approved for use. Yet the impact of medication labeling changes on brand pharmaceutical products, and whether and what firms do to respond to increased information regarding the safety and efficacy...

Much has been written about the seemingly less formal, more agile biotechnology industry and its extensive interactions with academia and startups, as well as its distinct scientific, manufacturing and regulatory profile. Employing a data base encompassing all 96 biologics and 212 small...

The emergence of targeted therapies in oncology has enormous potential to improve care for individual patients and specific subpopulations. A consequence of these advances is the segmentation of oncology into numerous sub-types, often with small patient populations. In this research we document...