Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are one of the most important classes of prescription drugs used by primary care physicians to manage pain. The NSAID class of products has a somewhat controversial history, around which a complex regulatory and informational environment has...

Context: This article explores the relative impact of marketing information and FDA regulatory actions in the market for prescription drugs. We examine how direct to consumer advertising (DTCA) and FDA issued precautions and boxed warnings together affect young patients' visits with physicians...

Direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals has led to questions of whether consumers benefit from the additional drug information, or are harmed by being induced to pursue prescriptions that are unnecessary or even dangerous. We conducted an empirical study of the relation between...

We examine how direct to consumer advertising (DCA) affects the delay between diagnosis and pharmacological treatment for patients suffering from a common chronic disease. The primary data for this study consist of patients diagnosed with osteoarthritis (N=18,235) taken from a geographically...

We examine the impact on inter-regional trade in eastern U.S. electricity markets arising from the FERC-supported creation of Independent System Operators (ISOs). Our analysis focuses on the PJM ISO (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and other states) and its trade with the New York ISO and...

At the heart of antitrust law is the prohibition on horizontal collusion. To enforce this prohibition, the law must accurately define what collusion entails. One of the most controversial areas of antitrust is the issue of vertical restraints. In the last 20 years, economists have come up with...

Transmission economics remains a difficult area. Market forces alone are generally felt to be insufficient for signaling investment due to appropriability problems and the challenges of “parallel (loop) flow.” Further, there is no generally recognized method of estimating the value of...

On December 19, 2019, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an order dramatically expanding the Minimum Offer Price Rule in PJM’s capacity market. The order changes how electricity-generating resources that receive state subsidies are treated in federally regulated wholesale...

To the casual observer, proposals to increase the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards on vehicles may seem to be a good idea. However, according to the data presented in this article, tighter CAFE standards would save very little gasoline, increase car buyers' costs and lower their...

Transforming the electric power grid is central to any viable scenario for addressing global climate change, but the process and politics of this transformation are complex. The desire to transform the grid creates an “energy trilemma” involving often conflicting desires for reliability,...