Although the not-for-profit sector contributes greatly to aggregate output in many industries, there is little explicit analysis of the consequences of applying antitrust policy in this sector. This paper argues that the same incentives to collude exist in the non-profit sector as in the...

This paper discusses the definition and identification of external treatment effects and experimental designs capable of detecting these effects. External effects occur when the outcome of a given individual is affected by the treatment assignments of other individuals. The paper argues that...

Lack of income convergence for the world as a whole has led to concerns about the impact of globalization of markets on world inequality. GDP per capita is usually used to proxy for the quality of life of individuals living in different countries. However, well-being is also affected by quantity...

A patent only protects an innovator from others producing the same product, but it does not protect him from others producing better products under new patents. Therefore, one may divide up the source of competition facing an innovator into within-patent competition, which results from...

Medical care at the end of life, estimated to contribute up to a quarter of US health care spending, often encounters skepticism from payers and policy makers who question its high cost and often minimal health benefits. However, though many observers have claimed that such spending is often...

Public technology assessments in general and Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) in particular have been justified by offsetting benefits of improving patient health and reducing health care spending. However, little conceptual and empirical understanding exists concerning the quantitative...

Increased health care spending has been argued to be largely due to technological change. Cost-effectiveness analysis is the main tool used by private and public third-party payers to prioritize adoption of the new technologies responsible for this growth. However, such analysis by payers...

We review and extend the economic analysis of risk and uncertainty as it relates to behavior mitigating health shocks. We summarize some central aspects of the vast positive and normative literature on the role of various forms of insurance that attempt to smooth consumption, which can be uneven...

Public subsidization of technology assessments in general, and Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) in particular, has received considerable attention as a tool to simultaneously improve patient health and lower the cost of health care. However, little conceptual and empirical understanding...

We provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of the link between financial and real health care markets. This link is important as financial returns drive investment in medical research and development (R&D), which in turn, affects real spending growth. We document a “medical innovation...