Consumer Information and Pharmaceutical Prices: Theory and Evidence

David Granlund () and Niklas Rudholm ()
Additional contact information
David Granlund: Department of Economics, Postal: Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Niklas Rudholm: The Swedish Retail Institute (HUI), Postal: Regeringsgatan 60, SE-103 29 Stockholm, Sweden

No 8, HUI Working Papers from HUI Research

Abstract: In this paper, the impact of increased information on brand name and generic pharmaceutical prices is analyzed both theoretically and empirically. The theoretical results show that an increase in information is likely to reduce the price of brand name pharmaceuticals, while the results regarding generics are less clear. In the empirical part of the paper, the introduction of the substitution reform in the Swedish pharmaceuticals market in October 2002 is used as a natural experiment regarding the effects of increased consumer information on pharmaceutical prices. The results clearly show that the reform has lowered the price of both brand name- and generic pharmaceuticals.

Keywords: Pharmaceutical industry; generic competition; generic drugs; brand name drugs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D80 D83 I11 L65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2007-04-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-hea and nep-mkt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published as Granlund, David and Niklas Rudholm, 'Consumer Information and Pharmaceutical Prices: Theory and Evidence' in Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2011, pages 230-254.

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:huiwps:0008

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in HUI Working Papers from HUI Research Handelns Forskningsinstitut, c/o HUI Research, Regeringsgatan 60, 103 29 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Hans Seerar Westerberg ().