After decades of unsuccessfully trying to reduce drug spending in the Spanish National Health System through actions on prices and on prescribers, the co-payment established in mid-2012 led to a dramatic reduction in the use of drugs. The health effects of this reduction are not known. </AbstractSection>...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the explanatory factors affecting introductory prices of new pharmaceuticals in a heavily regulated and highly subsidized market. We collect a data set consisting of all new chemical entities launched in Spain between 1997 and 2005, and model launching...

Objective: To describe empirical studies evaluating the impact of reference pricing (RP) interventions in pharmaceutical markets in order to discuss the requirements for these evaluations. Methods: Ten studies were included in this review. For each study, the nature of the intervention, the...

Policies consisting of or including prior authorisation (PA) of pharmaceutical prescriptions have been increasingly implemented by public and private insurers in the last decade, especially in the US, in order to control drug spending. We conducted a systematic review of published articles...

This paper estimates a translog stochastic frontier production function in the analysis of all 48 contiguous U.S. states in the period 1970-1983, to attempt to measure and explain changes in technical efficiency. The model allows technical inefficiency to vary over time, and inefficiency effects...

This paper examines the impact of coinsurance exemption for prescription medicines applied to elderly individuals in Spain after retirement. To evaluate this coinsurance change we use a rich administrative dataset that links pharmaceutical consumption and hospital discharge records for the full...