This paper studies the interactions between health insurance and the incentives for innovation. Although we focus on pharmaceutical innovation, our discussion applies to other industries producing novel technologies for sale in markets with subsidized demand. Standard results in the growth and...

Approximately 100 million elderly will enter Medicare over the next 25 years. We consider the potential benefits of interventions that would reduce or eliminate the most important risk factors for disease and spending. Effective control of hypertension could reduce health care spending $890...

Diabetes is a common and very costly chronic disease. There is broad-based agreement on how to manage diabetes, yet less than 40% of adults with diabetes achieve guideline-recommended levels of medical care. We investigate the reasons for this phenomenon by examining the business case for...

This paper presents evidence on the characteristic speculative dynamics of returns on stocks, bonds, foreign exchange, real estate, collectibles, and precious metals. It highlights four stylized facts. First, returns tend to be positively serially correlated at high frequency. Second, they are...

This paper examines the effect on health outcomes of moving from cost-based to prospective reimbursement of hospitals. The paper reaches two conclusions. First, hospitals that experienced average price declines had a greater share of deaths occur in the hospital or shortly after discharge. By...