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Health Care

Americans spend significantly more on health care than any other country. Why? Answers to this question range from hospital monopolies to perverse incentives to opaque pricing to medical licensing to pharmaceutical firms abusing IP practices to “creeping consolidation.” Why is the US health care system so broken? And what can antirust do about it? Catch-up on our coverage of antitrust and the US health care system.

Commentary

We Need Better Research on the Relationship Between Market Power and Productivity in the Hospital Industry

David Ennis
Antitrust debates have largely ignored questions about the relationship between market power and productivity, and scholars have provided little guidance on the issue due to data limitations. However, data is plentiful on the hospital industry for both market power and operating costs and productivity, and researchers need to take advantage, writes David Ennis.
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Book Excerpts

Lowering the Barriers to Entry for Economics Research in Healthcare

Filippo Lancieri
A new collection of scholarly work on the economics of the US healthcare sector is released today. The following is an adaptation...
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Health Care

Rethinking How To Achieve Universal Health Care Coverage in the US

Katherine Baicker, Amitabh Chandra, Mark Shepard
Solutions to expanding heath care coverage in the U.S. are often incremental and focus on mitigating market failures. In new research, Katherine...
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Antitrust and Competition

Antitrust Enforcement Is Not Enough to Address Anticompetitive Conduct in Pharmaceutical Markets. Market-Oriented Legal Reform is Needed.

Alden Abbott
Federal antitrust enforcement has been robust and effective in promoting prescription drug market competition and thereby enhancing consumer welfare. Antitrust enforcement in...
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Antitrust and Competition

Competition Problems in Prescription Drug Market

Michael Kades
Although not the sole cause of high prescription drug costs, abusive practices that distort competition contribute to the problem. Too many companies...
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Antitrust and Competition

Why the FTC Should Consider Size in Drug Mergers

Patricia M. Danzon, Michael A. Carrier
Large pharmaceutical firms retain their dominance through size-related advantages in three areas: contracting, marketing and selling, and financing. When reviewing pharmaceutical mergers,...
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Antitrust and Competition

The Covid-19 Pandemic Should Not Delay Actions to Prevent Anticompetitive Consolidation in US Health Care Markets

Leemore Dafny
Harvard Business School professor Leemore Dafny lays out potential reforms to assist agencies in halting anticompetitive acquisitions and practices, and to preserve...
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Antitrust and Competition

Invigorating Competition in Health Care Markets: Is Rate Regulation Needed?

Tim Greaney
It now appears that market concentration may be the leading cause of America’s health care cost crisis. If the United States is...
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Antitrust and Competition

Opening the Black Box: The Hidden Costs of Data-Driven Mergers in Health Care

Theodosia Stavroulaki
Vertical data-driven mergers between health insurers and drug suppliers may facilitate health insurers’ efforts to discriminate against vulnerable populations, leaving them without...
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Antitrust and Competition

How the FTC Protected the Market Power of Pharmacy Benefit Managers

Stacy Mitchell, Zach Freed
Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) were established in the 1960s to control drug costs but have since morphed into one of the most...
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Latest news

Antitrust and Competition

Revising the Merger Guidelines To Return Antitrust to a Sound Economic and Legal Foundation

John Kwoka
The draft Merger Guidelines largely replace the consumer welfare standard of the Chicago School with the lessening of competition principle found in the 1914 Clayton Act. This shift would enable the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division to utilize the full extent of modern economics to respond to rising concentration and its harmful effects, writes John Kwoka.
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Economic History

How Anthony Downs’s Analysis Explains Rational Voters’ Preferences for Populism

Cyril Hédoin, Alexandre Chirat
In new research, Cyril Hédoin and Alexandre Chirat use the rational-choice theory of economist Anthony Downs to explain how populism rationally arises to challenge established institutions of liberal democracy.
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Antitrust and Competition

The Impact of Large Institutional Investors on Innovation Is Not as Positive as One Might Expect

Bing Guo, Dennis C. Hutschenreiter, David Pérez-Castrillo, Anna Toldrà-Simats
In a new paper, Bing Guo, Dennis C. Hutschenreiter, David Pérez-Castrillo, and Anna Toldrà-Simats study how large institutional investors impact firm innovation. The authors find that large institutional investors encourage internal research and development but discourage firm acquisitions that would add patents and knowledge to their firms’ portfolios, hampering overall innovation.
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Antitrust and Competition

The FTC Needs To Focus Arguments on Technological Transitions After High-Profile Losses

Joshua Gray, Cristian Santesteban
Joshua Gray and Cristian Santesteban argue that the Federal Trade Commission's focus in Meta-Within and Microsoft-Activision on narrow markets like VR fitness apps and consoles missed the boat on the real competition issue: the threat to future competition in nascent markets like VR platforms and cloud gaming.
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Commentary

We Need Better Research on the Relationship Between Market Power and Productivity in the Hospital Industry

David Ennis
Antitrust debates have largely ignored questions about the relationship between market power and productivity, and scholars have provided little guidance on the issue due to data limitations. However, data is plentiful on the hospital industry for both market power and operating costs and productivity, and researchers need to take advantage, writes David Ennis.
Read more
Antitrust and Competition

Debating the Draft Merger Guidelines: Transcript

ProMarket writers
On September 7, the Stigler Center hosted a webinar to discuss the draft merger guidelines. What follows is a slightly edited transcript of the event.
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Commentary

Holding Up the News

Joshua Braun
Meta has silenced news organizations’ social media accounts in response to Canada’s Online News Act, a law not yet in effect. Josh Braun describes the reasoning behind such legislation, its potential flaws, and how Meta, particularly Facebook, has turned the Canadian wildfire crisis into a regulatory pressure campaign.
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ProMarket is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visit ProMarket Policy.

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