IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/yor/hectdg/23-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Drug Shortages: Empirical Evidence from France

Author

Listed:
  • Dubois, P.;
  • Majewska, G.;
  • Reig, V.;

Abstract

Drug shortages are a problem widely documented around the world. We develop a simple method allowing to identify shortage events and their intensity using sales data at a national level. In the case of prescription drugs, shortages occur when the quantities supplied do not meet demand at regulated prices. Using sales data only, shortages that are driven by supply shocks affect only the lower distribution of sales quantities and can be identified using a demand prediction model estimated on sales observed above a given quantile threshold. We can then measure the likelihood and the magnitude of shortage events. We provide evidence that lower French prices increase the likelihood and magnitude of shortages in France. However, higher prices in the UK seem to have positive spillover effects on reducing the likelihood of shortages, while a negative one when shortages happen and there is competition for scarce resources internationally. Finally, we provide evidence on the heterogeneous effects of shortage reductions achievable through higher regulated prices in France.

Suggested Citation

  • Dubois, P.; & Majewska, G.; & Reig, V.;, 2023. "Drug Shortages: Empirical Evidence from France," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 23/07, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    • Handle: RePEc:yor:hectdg:23/07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/hedg/workingpapers/2023/2307.pdf
    File Function: Main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Pierre Dubois & Olivier de Mouzon & Fiona Scott-Morton & Paul Seabright, 2015. "Market size and pharmaceutical innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(4), pages 844-871, October.
    3. Ali Yurukoglu & Eli Liebman & David B. Ridley, 2017. "The Role of Government Reimbursement in Drug Shortages," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 348-382, May.
    4. Daron Acemoglu & Joshua Linn, 2004. "Market Size in Innovation: Theory and Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 1049-1090.
    5. Kyle Margaret, 2011. "Strategic Responses to Parallel Trade," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(2), pages 1-34, January.
    6. András Fittler & Róbert György Vida & Valter Rádics & Lajos Botz, 2018. "A challenge for healthcare but just another opportunity for illegitimate online sellers: Dubious market of shortage oncology drugs," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-17, August.
    7. Christopher Stomberg, 2016. "Drug Shortages, Pricing, and Regulatory Activity," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Modeling Health Care Costs, pages 323-348, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Christopher Stomberg, 2016. "Drug Shortages, Pricing, and Regulatory Activity," NBER Working Papers 22912, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Dubois, Pierre & Majewska, Gosia & Reig, Valentina, 2023. "Drug Shortages: Empirical Evidence from France," TSE Working Papers 23-1417, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    2. 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.
    3. Kyle, Margaret K., 2022. "Incentives for pharmaceutical innovation: What’s working, what’s lacking," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Kortelainen, Mika & Markkanen, Jaakko & Toivanen, Otto & Siikanen, Markku, 2023. "The Effects of Price Regulation on Pharmaceutical Expenditure and Availability," CEPR Discussion Papers 18497, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Dubois, Pierre & Gandhi, Ashvin & Vasserman, Shoshana, 2022. "Bargaining and International Reference Pricing in the Pharmaceutical Industry," Research Papers 3889, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    6. Ernst R. Berndt & Rena M. Conti & Stephen J. Murphy, 2017. "The Landscape of US Generic Prescription Drug Markets, 2004-2016," NBER Working Papers 23640, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Gamba, Simona & Magazzini, Laura & Pertile, Paolo, 2021. "R&D and market size: Who benefits from orphan drug legislation?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    8. Branstetter, Lee & Chatterjee, Chirantan & Higgins, Matthew J., 2022. "Generic competition and the incentives for early-stage pharmaceutical innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).
    9. Eric Budish & Benjamin Roin & Heidi Williams, 2013. "Do fixed patent terms distort innovation? Evidence from cancer clinical trials," Discussion Papers 13-001, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    10. Heidi L. Williams, 2016. "Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation: Evidence from Health Care Markets," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 53-87.
    11. Fabian Gaessler & Stefan Wagner, 2022. "Patents, Data Exclusivity, and the Development of New Drugs," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(3), pages 571-586, May.
    12. Iain M. Cockburn & Jean O. Lanjouw & Mark Schankerman, 2016. "Patents and the Global Diffusion of New Drugs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(1), pages 136-164, January.
    13. Mark Pauly & Kyle Myers, 2016. "A Ricardian-Demand Explanation for Changing Pharmaceutical R&D Productivity," NBER Working Papers 22720, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Iizuka, Toshiaki & Uchida, Gyo, 2017. "Promoting innovation in small markets: Evidence from the market for rare and intractable diseases," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 56-65.
    15. Ugur, Mehmet & Trushin, Eshref, 2018. "Asymmetric information and heterogeneous effects of R&D subsidies: evidence on R&D investment and employment of R&D personel," Greenwich Papers in Political Economy 21943, University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre.
    16. Wang, Lucy Xiaolu, 2022. "Global drug diffusion and innovation with the medicines patent pool," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    17. Beth Woods & James Lomas & Mark Sculpher & Helen Weatherly & Karl Claxton, 2024. "Achieving dynamic efficiency in pharmaceutical innovation: Identifying the optimal share of value and payments required," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 804-819, April.
    18. 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.
    19. Beerli, Andreas & Weiss, Franziska J. & Zilibotti, Fabrizio & Zweimüller, Josef, 2020. "Demand forces of technical change evidence from the Chinese manufacturing industry," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    20. Fiona M. Scott Morton & Ariel Dora Stern & Scott Stern, 2018. "The Impact of the Entry of Biosimilars: Evidence from Europe," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 53(1), pages 173-210, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    drug shortages; prices; regulation; econometrics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy
    • L65 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Chemicals; Rubber; Drugs; Biotechnology; Plastics
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    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:yor:hectdg:23/07. 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: Jane Rawlings (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deyoruk.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.