Healthcare

Lowering the Barriers to Entry for Economics Research in Healthcare

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

Five New Pieces You Should Read from Chicago Booth Review

Chicago Booth Review recently published its fall issue covering a variety of new research. We suggest five articles from the issue on...

Healthcare Companies Spent More on Lobbying Than Any Other Industry Last Year

Threatened by regulated price caps from congress, the pharmaceutical industry spent nearly $390 million on lobbying in 2021 according to new data...

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

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

Competition Problems in Prescription Drug Market

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

The Unchecked Market Power of the American Health Care System

Chicago Booth alumnus and retired health care consultant David W. Ennis responds to ProMarket’s recent coverage on antitrust and the US health...

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

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

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

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

What Is the Price of a Prescription Drug?

Due to lack of transparency and mystery rebates, which are considered trade secrets, figuring out the price of a prescription drug is...

Covid-19 Is Reducing Americans’ Confidence Across Institutions

Latest US household survey findings reveal that the Covid-19 crisis caused a sharp reduction in Americans’ confidence in institutions—whether or not they...

LATEST NEWS

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.