Do Incentives Matter for Hospitals?
By Tal Gross, Adam Sacarny, Maggie Shi & David Silver
America spends about 6 cents of every dollar at its hospitals. A natural question to ask: why not just pay those hospitals less?
Category: Research
How important is price variation between health insurers?
By Stuart V. Craig, Keith Marzilli Ericson, and Amanda Starc
We examined how prices vary between insurers for the same procedure at the same hospital, using a dataset of all commercial Massachusetts hospital claims.
The role of TRIPS in encouraging pharmaceutical technological diffusion in developing countries
Iain Cockburn, Tim Wilsdon, Michele Pistollato, Rajini Jayasuriya, and Thomas Watson
The 1995 TRIPS Agreement between member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO) defines minimum standards of intellectual property (IP) protection and enforcement.
US Insurer Spending on Ivermectin Prescriptions for COVID-19
Insurers heavily subsidize the cost of ivermectin prescriptions for COVID, despite the lack of evidence that ivermectin is effective for COVID. In a new paper, published in JAMA, Questrom professor and TPRI co-lead Rena Conti with colleagues Kao-Ping Chua and Nora Becker (both University of Michigan) estimate that U.S. insurers may have wasted $2.5 million on these drugs in the week of August 13, 2021 alone.
Addressing the trade-off between lower drug prices and incentives for pharmaceutical innovation
TPRI faculty co-lead and Questrom faculty Rena Conti will testify at the upcoming U.S. House of Representatives hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, entitled “Unsustainable Drug Prices: Findings from the Committee’s Drug Pricing Investigation and the Need for Structural Reforms.” on Friday, December 10, 2021, at 10 a.m. Professor Conti will discuss recently published papers germane to the current public debate on lowering prescription drug prices.
Declining Industrial Disruption
James Bessen, Erich Denk, Joowon Kim, Cesare Righi
This paper reports the first recent estimates of trends in the displacement of industry-leading firms. Displacement hazards rose for several decades since 1970 but have declined sharply since 2000. Using a production function-based model to explore the role of investments, acquisitions, and lobbying, we find that investments by dominant firms in intangibles, especially software, are distinctly associated with greater persistence and reduced leapfrogging.
Ethics and AI Startups
James Bessen, Stephen Michael Impink, Lydia Reichensperger, and Robert Seamans
Results from TPRI’s 2021 AI Ethics survey shed light on how startups approach the uncertain landscape of ethics and Artificial Intelligence.
Patents and Price Fixing by Serial Colluders
William E. Kovacic, Robert C. Marshall, and Michael J. Meurer
New research arguing for new policies to address serial collusion in various industries, including guidance to antitrust enforcers about how to better understand and combat serial collusion facilitated by patents.
From Productivity to Firm Growth
James Bessen and Erich Denk
New research finding that firm size, productivity dispersion, and large firm investments in intangibles can account for much of the decline in the response to productivity since 2000, and that industry concentration is directly related to aggregate productivity growth.
Firm Differences: Skill Sorting and Software
James Bessen, Erich Denk, and Chen Meng
New research explaining the role of proprietary software investment in the rise in skill sorting and wage inequality.