We estimate the effects of horizontal mergers on marginal cost efficiencies – an ubiquitous merger justification – using data containing supply purchase orders from a large sample of US hospitals 2009-2015. The data provide a level of detail that has been difficult to observe previously, and...

In markets where consumers seek expert advice regarding purchases, firms seek to influence experts, raising concerns about biased advice. Assessing firm-expert interactions requires identifying their causal impact on demand, amidst frictions like market power. We study pharmaceutical firms'...

We estimate the effects of hospital mergers, using detailed data containing medical supply transactions (representing 23 percent of operating costs) from a sample of US hospitals 2009-2015. Pre-merger price variation across hospitals (Gini coefficient 7 percent) suggests significant...

Using data on hospitals’ purchases across a large number of important product categories, we find that access to information on purchasing by peer hospitals leads to reductions in the prices hospitals negotiate for supplies. These effects are concentrated among hospitals previously paying...

We draw upon newly merged administrative data sets to study the relationship between payments from medical technology firms to physicians and medical device procurement by hospitals. These payments (and the interactions that accompany them) may facilitate the transfer of valuable information to...

This dissertation studies the economic forces that determine prices in business-to-business health care markets. Health care is a large fraction of the US economy. In US health care markets, consumers are often insured and interact with the health care system through intermediary decision makers...

Prices negotiated between payers and providers affect a health insurance contract's value via enrollees' cost-sharing and self-insured employers' costs. However, price variation across payers is hard to observe. We measure negotiated prices for hospital-payer pairs in Massachusetts and...

Prices negotiated between payers and providers affect a health insurance contract's value via enrollees' cost-sharing and self-insured employers' costs. However, price variation across payers is hard to observe. We measure negotiated prices for hospital-payer pairs in Massachusetts and...