Who gains from more information on the quality of pharmaceutical drugs? Are there incentives for voluntary post-approval clinical trials among pharmaceutical companies? Contrary to popular belief, this paper shows that it is not in the consumer interest that clinical evidence establishing the...

The year of 1997 witnessed an important change in direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs. For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permitted brand-specific DTC ads on TV without a "brief summary" of comprehensive risk information. This led to a three-fold...

Policymakers and market intermediaries often use quality scores to alleviate asymmetric information about product quality. Scores affect the demand for quality and, in equilibrium, its supply. Equilibrium effects break the rule whereby more information is always better, and the optimal design of...

In "Marketing Information: A Competitive Analysis,'' Sarvary and Parker (1997) (S&P) [Marketing Science, 16(1): 24-38] argue that, a reduction in the price of one information product can lead to an increase in demand for another information product -- information products can be gross...

In "Marketing Information: A Competitive Analysis,'' Sarvary and Parker (1997) (S&P) [Marketing Science, 16(1): 24-38] argue that in part of the parameter space that they considered, a reduction in the price of one information product can lead to an increase in demand for another information...

The prevalence of misinformation has spurred various interested parties--regulators, the media, and competing firms--to debunk false claims in the marketplace. This paper studies whether such debunking messages provided by these parties can impact consumer purchase behavior. If so, does...

Firms and statistical agencies that publish aggregate data face practical and legal requirements to protect the privacy of individuals. Increasingly, these organizations meet these standards by using publication mechanisms which satisfy differential privacy. We consider the problem of choosing...

Among non-specialists, the estimates of the HIV/AIDS transmission rate are generally upwardly biased. This overestimation may be perceived as a godsend, as it increases the incentives to have protected sexual relationships. However, a pernicious effect may counterbalance this positive effect....

Private firms often withhold information or contest scientific knowledge when public revelation could lead to costly regulations or liability. This concealment leads to negative externalities and public harm. But what if private firms' superior knowledge and self-interest could be harnessed to...

We show how characterizing optimal patent policy for the pharmaceutical industry only requires information about generic producers' responses to changes in the effective duration and scope of new drug patents. To estimate these responses, we use data on Paragraph IV patent challenges, and two...