IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/ijhcfe/v17y2017i2d10.1007_s10754-016-9205-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Drug innovation, price controls, and parallel trade

Author

Listed:
  • Giorgio Matteucci

    (Sapienza – Università di Roma)

  • Pierfrancesco Reverberi

    (Sapienza – Università di Roma)

Abstract

We study the long-run welfare effects of parallel trade (PT) in pharmaceuticals. We develop a two-country model of PT with endogenous quality, where the pharmaceutical firm negotiates the price of the drug with the government in the foreign country. We show that, even though the foreign government does not consider global R&D costs, (the threat of) PT improves the quality of the drug as long as the foreign consumers’ valuation of quality is high enough. We find that the firm’s short-run profit may be higher when PT is allowed. Nonetheless, this is neither necessary nor sufficient for improving drug quality in the long run. We also show that improving drug quality is a sufficient condition for PT to increase global welfare. Finally, we show that, when PT is allowed, drug quality may be higher with than without price controls.

Suggested Citation

  • Giorgio Matteucci & Pierfrancesco Reverberi, 2017. "Drug innovation, price controls, and parallel trade," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 159-179, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:ijhcfe:v:17:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s10754-016-9205-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s10754-016-9205-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10754-016-9205-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10754-016-9205-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brekke, Kurt R. & Holmås, Tor Helge & Straume, Odd Rune, 2015. "Price regulation and parallel imports of pharmaceuticals," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 92-105.
    2. Bennato, Anna Rita & Valletti, Tommaso, 2014. "Pharmaceutical innovation and parallel trade," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 83-92.
    3. Bardey, D. & Bommier, A. & Jullien, B., 2010. "Retail price regulation and innovation: Reference pricing in the pharmaceutical industry," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 303-316, March.
    4. Matteucci, Giorgio & Reverberi, Pierfrancesco, 2014. "Parallel trade, product quality, and welfare," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 258-262.
    5. Panos Kanavos & Joan Costa-Font, 2005. "Pharmaceutical parallel trade in Europe: stakeholder and competition effects [‘First report (final) to the Committee on International Trade Law of the International Law Association on the subject o," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 20(44), pages 758-798.
    6. Gene M. Grossman & Edwin L.‐C. Lai, 2008. "Parallel imports and price controls," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 378-402, June.
    7. Schmalensee, Richard, 1981. "Output and Welfare Implications of Monopolistic Third-Degree Price Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(1), pages 242-247, March.
    8. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1985. "Network Externalities, Competition, and Compatibility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 424-440, June.
    9. Margaret K. Kyle, 2007. "Pharmaceutical Price Controls and Entry Strategies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 88-99, February.
    10. Izabela Jelovac & Catalina Bordoy, 2005. "Pricing and Welfare Implications of Parallel Imports in the Pharmaceutical Industry," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 5-21, January.
    11. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    12. Giorgio Matteucci & Pierfrancesco Reverberi, 2005. "Price Regulation and Public Service Obligations under International Arbitrage," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 91-113, July.
    13. Charitini Stavropoulou & Tommaso Valletti, 2015. "Compulsory licensing and access to drugs," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 16(1), pages 83-94, January.
    14. Pecorino, Paul, 2002. "Should the US allow prescription drug reimports from Canada?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 699-708, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giorgio Gnecco & Fabio Pammolli & Berna Tuncay, 2022. "Welfare and research and development incentive effects of uniform and differential pricing schemes," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 229-268, June.
    2. Chiara Conti & Pierfrancesco Reverberi, 2019. "Price discrimination and product quality under opt-in privacy regulation," DIAG Technical Reports 2019-07, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza".
    3. Conti, Chiara & Reverberi, Pierfrancesco, 2021. "Price discrimination and product quality under opt-in privacy regulation," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).

    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. Laura Birg, 2023. "Pharmaceutical regulation under market integration through parallel trade," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(4), pages 1322-1346, November.
    2. Bennato, Anna Rita & Valletti, Tommaso, 2014. "Pharmaceutical innovation and parallel trade," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 83-92.
    3. Charitini Stavropoulou & Tommaso Valletti, 2015. "Compulsory licensing and access to drugs," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 16(1), pages 83-94, January.
    4. Tomaso Duso & Annika Herr & Moritz Suppliet, 2014. "The Welfare Impact Of Parallel Imports: A Structural Approach Applied To The German Market For Oral Anti‐Diabetics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(9), pages 1036-1057, September.
    5. Birg, Laura, 2018. "Parallel Imports and Manufacturer Rebates," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181646, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Brekke, Kurt R. & Holmås, Tor Helge & Straume, Odd Rune, 2015. "Price regulation and parallel imports of pharmaceuticals," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 92-105.
    7. Laura Birg, 2023. "Parallel imports under a manufacturer rebate and a price freeze: Evidence from Germany," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(2), pages 302-323, February.
    8. Kamal Saggi, 2016. "Trade, Intellectual Property Rights, and the World Trade Organization," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 16-00014, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    9. Birg, Laura, 2019. "Parallel imports and manufacturer rebates: Evidence from Germany," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 363, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    10. Reisinger, Markus & Saurí, Lluís & Zenger, Hans, 2019. "Parallel imports, price controls, and innovation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 163-179.
    11. Giorgio Matteucci & Pierfrancesco Reverberi, 2014. "Parallel trade, price regulation, and investment incentives," DIAG Technical Reports 2014-16, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza".
    12. Birg, Laura, 2019. "Price Caps versus Reimbursement Limits: Pharmaceutical Regulation under Market Integration through Parallel Trade," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 253, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics, revised 2019.
    13. David Granlund, 2022. "The Price Effects of Competition from Parallel Imports and Therapeutic Alternatives: Using Dynamic Models to Estimate the Causal Effect on the Extensive and Intensive Margins," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 60(1), pages 63-92, February.
    14. Begoña Garcia Mariñoso & Izabela Jelovac & Pau Olivella, 2011. "External referencing and pharmaceutical price negotiation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(6), pages 737-756, June.
    15. Pierre Dubois & Morten Sæthre, 2020. "On the Effect of Parallel Trade on Manufacturers' and Retailers' Profits in the Pharmaceutical Sector," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2503-2545, November.
    16. Acharyya, Rajat & García-Alonso, María D.C., 2012. "Income based price subsidies and parallel imports," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 25-41.
    17. Senra de Morais, Rafael Pinho, 2017. "Compulsory licensing of pharmaceuticals by the developing south," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 74-77.
    18. 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.
    19. Granlund, David & Yesim Köksal, Miyase, 2011. "Parallel Imports and Mandatory Substitution Reform: A kick or a muff for price competition in pharmaceuticals," Working Papers in Economics 496, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    20. Granlund, David, 2012. "The effect of pharmacies’ right to negotiate discounts on the market share of parallel imported pharmaceuticals," HUI Working Papers 75, HUI Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Parallel trade; Price controls; R&D investment; Prescription drugs; Intellectual property rights;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    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:kap:ijhcfe:v:17:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s10754-016-9205-5. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.