This paper investigates whether patient‐level factors, in particular cost considerations, affect the physicians' prescribing decisions. In the context of a natural experiment, we examine the effect of the first US commercial free‐antibiotics program on retail antibiotic sales. We find an...

The topics discussed in the Handbook on the Economics of Natural Resources are essential for those looking to understand how best to use and conserve the resources that form the foundation for human well-being. These include nonrenewable resources, modeling of biological resources, conservation...

We consider a health authority seeking to allocate annual budgets optimally over time to minimize the discounted social cost of infection(s) evolving in a finite set of groups. This optimization problem is challenging since the standard SIS epidemiological model describing the spread of the...

Antimicrobials have been used in human medicine and in livestock production for more than 60 years, improving human and animal health but also fostering the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistant pathogens worldwide. This report focuses on the specific issue of the economic value of...

Problems of optimal natural resource extraction that were first addressed by economists in the contexts of fisheries and forests have reemerged in the context of a newly recognized resource: antibiotic effectiveness. This review introduces economists to the growing literature on optimal use,...