Parallel Imports and Mandatory Substitution Reform: A kick or a muff for price competition in pharmaceuticals

David Granlund () and Miyase Yesim Köksal ()
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David Granlund: The Swedish Retail Institute and Umeå University, Postal: The Swedish Retail Institute (HUI), SE-103 29 Stockholm, Sweden; and , Department of Economics , Umeå University , SE 901 87 Umeå
Miyase Yesim Köksal: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG

No 496, Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

Abstract: What has been the effect of competition from parallel imports on prices of locally-sourced onpatent drugs? Did the 2002 Swedish mandatory substitution reform increase this competition? To answer these questions, we carried out difference-in-differences estimation on monthly data for a panel of all on-patent prescription drugs sold in Sweden during the 40 months from January 2001 through April 2004. On average, facing competition from parallel imports caused a 15-17% fall in price. While the reform increased the effect of competition from parallel imports, it was only by 0.9%. The reform, however, did increase the effect of therapeutic competition by 1.6%.

Keywords: parallel imports; pharmaceutical drugs; price competition; reference pricing; therapeutic competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 L51 L65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2011-04-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ipr and nep-pr~
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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