IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v18y2009i6p727-742.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Concentration and drug prices in the retail market for malaria treatment in rural Tanzania

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine Goodman
  • S. Patrick Kachur
  • Salim Abdulla
  • Peter Bloland
  • Anne Mills

Abstract

The impact of market concentration has been little studied in markets for ambulatory care in the developing world, where the retail sector often accounts for a high proportion of treatments. This study begins to address this gap through an analysis of the consumer market for malaria treatment in rural areas of three districts in Tanzania. We developed methods for investigating market definition, sales volumes and concentration, and used these to explore the relationship between antimalarial retail prices and competition. The market was strongly geographically segmented and highly concentrated in terms of antimalarial sales. Antimalarial prices were positively associated with market concentration. High antimalarial prices were likely to be an important factor in the low proportion of care‐seekers obtaining appropriate treatment. Retail sector distribution of subsidised antimalarials has been proposed to increase the coverage of effective treatment, but this analysis indicates that local market power may prevent such subsidies from being passed on to rural customers. Policymakers should consider the potential to maintain lower retail prices by decreasing concentration among antimalarial providers and recommending retail price levels. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine Goodman & S. Patrick Kachur & Salim Abdulla & Peter Bloland & Anne Mills, 2009. "Concentration and drug prices in the retail market for malaria treatment in rural Tanzania," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(6), pages 727-742, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:6:p:727-742
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1473
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1473
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.1473?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Toni Ashton & David Press, 1997. "Market Concentration in Secondary Health Services Under a Purchaser–Provider Split: The New Zealand Experience," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(1), pages 43-56, January.
    2. World Bank, 2008. "World Development Indicators 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 11855.
    3. Gaynor, Martin & Vogt, William B., 2000. "Antitrust and competition in health care markets," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 27, pages 1405-1487, Elsevier.
    4. Conteh, Lesong & Hanson, Kara, 2003. "Methods for studying private sector supply of public health products in developing countries: a conceptual framework and review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(7), pages 1147-1161, October.
    5. Carol Propper & Neil Söderlund, 1998. "Competition in the NHS internal market: an overview of its effects on hospital prices and costs," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(3), pages 187-197, May.
    6. Filmer, Deon & Pritchett, Lant, 1998. "Estimating wealth effects without expenditure data - or tears : with an application to educational enrollments in states of India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1994, The World Bank.
    7. Dranove, David & Satterthwaite, Mark A., 2000. "The industrial organization of health care markets," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 20, pages 1093-1139, Elsevier.
    8. World Bank, 2008. "World Development Indicators 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 28241.
    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. Terry A. Taylor & Wenqiang Xiao, 2014. "Subsidizing the Distribution Channel: Donor Funding to Improve the Availability of Malaria Drugs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(10), pages 2461-2477, October.
    2. Puig-Junoy, Jaume & López-Valcárcel, Beatriz González, 2014. "Launch prices for new pharmaceuticals in the heavily regulated and subsidized Spanish market, 1995–2007," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 170-181.
    3. Schultz Hansen, Kristian & Hjernø Lesner, Tine & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2013. "Incentivising appropriate malaria treatment-seeking behaviour with price subsidies," DaCHE discussion papers 2013:8, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.

    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. Y. J. F. M. Krabbe-Alkemade & T. L. C. M. Groot & M. Lindeboom, 2017. "Competition in the Dutch hospital sector: an analysis of health care volume and cost," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 18(2), pages 139-153, March.
    2. Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda, 2012. "Targeted Subsidies and Private Market Participation: An Assessment of Fertilizer Demand in Nigeria:," IFPRI discussion papers 1194, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Klaus Desmet & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The political economy of ethnolinguistic cleavages," Working Papers 2009-17, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    4. Shafaeddin, Mehdi, 2010. "Trade liberalization, industrialization and development; experience of recent decades," MPRA Paper 26355, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Nicola Banks, 2014. "What works for young people's development? A Case Study of BRAC's Empowerment and Livelihoods for Adolescent Girls programme in Uganda and Tanzania," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 21214, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    6. Andreas Steiner, 2010. "Central Banks’ Dilemma: Reserve Accumulation, Inflation and Financial Instability," IEER Working Papers 84, Institute of Empirical Economic Research, Osnabrueck University.
    7. James Roumasset & Christopher Wada, 2012. "The Economics of Groundwater," Working Papers 201211, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    8. Rosta, Miklós, 2013. "New Public Management: opportunity for the Centre, thread for the Periphery," MPRA Paper 68474, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Hübler, Michael, 2011. "Technology diffusion under contraction and convergence: A CGE analysis of China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 131-142, January.
    10. Blocker, Christopher P. & Ruth, Julie A. & Sridharan, Srinivas & Beckwith, Colin & Ekici, Ahmet & Goudie-Hutton, Martina & Rosa, José Antonio & Saatcioglu, Bige & Talukdar, Debabrata & Trujillo, Carlo, 2013. "Understanding poverty and promoting poverty alleviation through transformative consumer research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1195-1202.
    11. Richens, Peter, 2009. "The economic legacies of the ‘thin white line’: indirect rule and the comparative development of sub-Saharan Africa," Economic History Working Papers 27879, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    12. James, Jennifer S. & Pardey, Philip G. & Alston, Julian M., 2008. "Agricultural R&D Policy: A Tragedy of the International Commons," Staff Papers 43094, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    13. Martin Gaynor, "undated". "What Do We Know About Competition and Quality in Health Care Markets?," GSIA Working Papers 2006-E62, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    14. Vrachimis Konstantinos & Zachariadis Marios, 2013. "A contribution to the empirics of welfare growth," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 213-244, April.
    15. Hoon Lee & Joseph L. Staats & Glen Biglaiser, 2012. "The importance of legal systems for portfolio investment in the developing world," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 339-358, December.
    16. Boris Branisa & Adriana Cardozo, 2009. "Regional Growth Convergence in Colombia Using Social Indicators," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 195, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Bergh, Andreas & Nilsson, Therese, 2010. "Good for Living? On the Relationship between Globalization and Life Expectancy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(9), pages 1191-1203, September.
    18. Cazzavillan, Guido & Olszewski, Krzysztof, 2012. "Interaction between foreign financial services and foreign direct investment in Transition Economies: An empirical analysis with focus on the manufacturing sector," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 305-319.
    19. Sophie Perrin & Thomas Bernauer, 2010. "International regime formation revisited: Explaining ratification behaviour with respect to long-range transboundary air pollution agreements in Europe," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(3), pages 405-426, September.
    20. Carol Propper & Deborah Wilson & Simon Burgess, 2005. "Extending Choice In English Health Care: The implications of the economic evidence," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 05/133, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.

    More about this item

    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:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:6:p:727-742. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    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.