Although US health care expenditures reached 17.6 percent of GDP in 2009, quality measurement in this important service sector remains limited. Studying quality changes associated with 11 years of health care for patients with diabetes, we find that the value of reduced mortality and avoided...

When the patent on a drug expires, there are substantial welfare gains to those consumers who, like the Food and Drug Administration, regard branded and generic versions as perfect substitutes. Standard price indexes fail to reflect this, since they treat generics as distinct new goods and 'link...

A new data set for approximately 1,000 largest manufacturing firms inthe United States during 1957-77 is analyzed using a standard production function framework augmented by the addition of R&D "capital" and "mix" variables. The results indicate that R&D continued to contribute to productivity...