The social value of an innovation is comprised of the value to consumers and the value to innovators. We estimate that for the HIV/AIDS therapies that entered the market from the late 1980's onwards, innovators appropriated only 5% of the social surplus arising from these new technologies....

"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. Improvements in health have been a major contributor to gains in overall economic welfare. In this paper, we argue that previous...