Intellectual property rights are viewed as essential to medical innovation, but very often involve social costs due to patent monopolies and other inefficiencies. We review the positive theory of innovation in health care, as it relates to the determination of innovation demand and supply. The...

Patents impose static costs by restricting price-competition, but may provide static benefits by promoting non-price competition. Competitive firms engage in inefficient levels of non-price competition, when this has external effects on competitors. For example, patent monopolies may market more...

Patent protection spurs innovation by raising the rewards for research, but it usually results in less desirable allocations after the innovation has been discovered. In effect, patents reward inventors with inefficient monopoly power. However, previous analysis of intellectual property has...

Patent protection spurs innovation by raising the rewards for research, but it usually results in less desirable allocations after the innovation has been discovered. In effect, patents reward inventors with inefficient monopoly power. However, previous analysis of intellectual property has...

Purpose – To evaluate the efficiency consequences of the Medicare Part D program. Methods – We develop and empirically calibrate a simple theoretical model to examine the static and the dynamic welfare effects of Medicare Part D. Findings – We show that Medicare Part D can simultaneously...