Congress enacted and renewed the Prescription Drug User Fee Acts (PDUFA) in 1992, and renewed it in 1997 and 2002, mandating FDA performance goals in reviewing and acting on drug applications within specified time periods. In turn, the FDA was permitted to levy user fees on drug sponsors...

Economists have long suggested that to be reliable, a preferred medical care price index should employ time-varying weights to measure outcomes-adjusted changes in the price of treating an episode of illness. In this article, we report on several years of research developing alternative indexes...

Health accounts document changes over time in the level and composition of health spending. There has been a continued evolution in the ability to track such outlays. Less rapid has been the ability to interpret changes in spending. In this paper we apply quality adjusted price indexes for...

The release of clarified Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines and independent changes in consumer behavior provide an opportunity to study the effects of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) in the prescription drug market alongside the effects of various physician-oriented promotions....

The ratio of controller-to-reliever medication use has been proposed as a measure of treatment quality for asthma patients. In this study we examine the effects of plan-level mean out-of-pocket asthma medication patient copayments and other features of benefit plan design on the use of...

Recently controversy has surrounded the issue of whether Social Security payments to the elderly should continue to be adjusted automatically according to changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). One issue in the public policy debate concerns whether price inflation is different for the...

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. One dimension of firm scope relates to how its output...

To overcome the problem of insufficient research and development (R&D) on vaccines for diseases concentrated in low-income countries, sponsors could commit to purchase viable vaccines if and when they are developed. One or more sponsors would commit to a minimum price that would be paid per...

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 would...

To overcome the problem of insufficient research and development (R&D) on vaccines for diseases concentrated in low-income countries, sponsors could commit to purchase viable vaccines if and when they are developed. One or more sponsors would commit to a minimum price that would be paid per...