IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/hastef/0636.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Incentives for Clinical Trials

Author

Listed:
  • Grönqvist, Erik

    (Centre for Health Economics, Department of Economics)

  • Lundin, Douglas

    (Pharmaceutical Benefits Board)

Abstract

Who gains from more information on the quality of pharmaceutical drugs? Are there incentives for voluntary post-approval clinical trials among pharmaceutical companies? Contrary to popular belief, this paper shows that it is not in the consumer interest that clinical evidence establishing the relative effectiveness within a class of drugs are produced. Pharmaceutical companies, on the other hand, do benefit: the elimination of uncertainty regarding quality increases expected product differentiation, thereby raising prices for both high-quality and low-quality drugs, to the disadvantage of consumers. Still there is no unique equilibrium where the market provides clinical trials. If the costs of carrying out clinical trials are small, in relative terms, there will be a coordination problem between firms, as firms will want a rival firm to carry the cost. If the costs are large they will be prohibitive. Legislation that obligates entering firms to carry out post-approval trials is beneficial for firms if it solves the coordination problem, but is otherwise harmful. Legislation is never in the interest of consumers.

Suggested Citation

  • Grönqvist, Erik & Lundin, Douglas, 2006. "Incentives for Clinical Trials," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 636, Stockholm School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0636
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://swopec.hhs.se/hastef/papers/hastef0636.pdf
    File Function: Complete Rendering
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1980. "Entry (and exit) in a differentiated industry," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 327-338, April.
    2. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    3. Avner Shaked & John Sutton, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition Through Product Differentiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13.
    4. Pierre Azoulay, 2002. "Do Pharmaceutical Sales Respond to Scientific Evidence?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(4), pages 551-594, December.
    5. Asher Wolinsky, 1983. "Prices as Signals of Product Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(4), pages 647-658.
    6. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1979. "Price competition, quality and income disparities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 340-359, June.
    7. Schmalensee, Richard, 1982. "Product Differentiation Advantages of Pioneering Brands," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 349-365, June.
    8. Mats Ekelund & Björn Persson, 2003. "Pharmaceutical Pricing in a Regulated Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 298-306, May.
    9. Bagwell, Kyle & Riordan, Michael H, 1991. "High and Declining Prices Signal Product Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 224-239, March.
    10. Z. John Lu & William S. Comanor, 1998. "Strategic Pricing Of New Pharmaceuticals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 108-118, February.
    11. Michael H. Riordan, 1986. "Monopolistic Competition with Experience Goods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 265-279.
    12. Helmut Bester, 1998. "Quality Uncertainty Mitigates Product Differentiation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(4), pages 828-844, Winter.
    13. William P. Rogerson, 1988. "Price Advertising and the Deterioration of Product Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(2), pages 215-229.
    14. DiMasi, Joseph A. & Hansen, Ronald W. & Grabowski, Henry G., 2003. "The price of innovation: new estimates of drug development costs," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 151-185, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gerhard Orosel & Klaus G. Zauner, 2004. "Vertical Product Differentiation When Quality is Unobservable to Buyers," CESifo Working Paper Series 1271, CESifo.
    2. Fulan Wu, 2017. "Signaling Unobservable Quality Choice through Price and Advertising: The Case with Competing Firms," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(2), pages 243-260, March.
    3. Gerhard O. Orosel & Klaus G. Zauner, 2011. "Quality Diversity and Prices in Markets for Experience Goods," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 709-738, September.
    4. Fluet, Claude & Garella, Paolo G., 2002. "Advertising and prices as signals of quality in a regime of price rivalry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(7), pages 907-930, September.
    5. Corchón Luis Carlos & Zudenkova Galina, 2013. "The Welfare Effects of Location and Quality in Oligopoly," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 1143-1178, July.
    6. Roy, Malabika, 2006. "Effect of subsidy and entry into the informal sector with interlinkage," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 383-397.
    7. Ngo Van Long & Zhuang Miao, 2020. "Multiple‐quality Cournot oligopoly and the role of market size," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 932-952, October.
    8. Peter-J. Jost, 2023. "Price commitment and the strategic launch of a fighter brand," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 381-435, September.
    9. Bergemann, Dirk & Valimaki, Juuso, 2002. "Entry and Vertical Differentiation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 91-125, September.
    10. Fernando Antoñanzas & Carmelo Juárez-Castelló & Roberto Rodríguez-Ibeas, 2011. "Innovation, loyalty and generic competition in pharmaceutical markets," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 75-95, March.
    11. Königbauer, Ingrid, 2006. "Dealing with Rising Health Care Costs: The Case of Pharmaceuticals," Munich Dissertations in Economics 5640, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    12. Radoslav Raykov, 2014. "Uncertain Costs and Vertical Differentiation in an Insurance Duopoly," Staff Working Papers 14-14, Bank of Canada.
    13. Zan Zhang & Guofang Nan & Minqiang Li & Yong Tan, 2022. "Competitive Entry of Information Goods Under Quality Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2869-2888, April.
    14. Christina Brinkmann, 2022. "Imperfect Competition in Derivatives Markets," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 153, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    15. Yi-Ling Cheng & Shin-Kun Peng, 2012. "Quality and Quantity Competition in a Multiproduct Duopoly," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(1), pages 180-202, July.
    16. Tarek Selim, 2004. "Endogenous quality choice: price and quantity competition," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 28(3), pages 1.
    17. Jie Chen & John Rizzo, 2012. "Pricing dynamics and product quality: the case of antidepressant drugs," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 279-300, February.
    18. Bonanno, Giacomo & Haworth, Barry, 1998. "Intensity of competition and the choice between product and process innovation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 495-510, July.
    19. Dirk Bergemann & Juuso Valimaki, 1999. "Entry and Innovation in Vertically Differentiated Markets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1226, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    20. Corrado Benassi & Alessandra Chirco & Caterina Colombo, 2019. "Vertical differentiation beyond the uniform distribution," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 126(3), pages 221-248, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Quality uncertainty; Symmetric information; Pharmaceutical market; Clinical trials;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0636. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Helena Lundin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erhhsse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.