The Economics of the Public Option: Evidence from Local Pharmaceutical Markets

Juan Pablo Atal, Jose Ignacio Cuesta, Felipe González and Cristóbal Otero ()
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Juan Pablo Atal: University of Pennsylvania
Jose Ignacio Cuesta: Stanford University and NBER

No 951, Working Papers from Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance

Abstract: We study the effects of competition by state-owned firms, leveraging the decentralized entry of public pharmacies to local markets in Chile. Public pharmacies sell the same drugs at a third of private pharmacy prices, because of stronger upstream bargaining and market power in the private sector, but are of lower quality. Public pharmacies induced market segmentation and price increases in the private sector, which benefited the switchers to the public option but harmed the stayers. The countrywide entry of public pharmacies would reduce yearly consumer drug expenditure by 1.6 percent.

JEL-codes: D72 H4 L3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-06-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-hea, nep-ind and nep-lam
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https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sef/media/econ/research/workingpapers/wp951.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Economics of the Public Option: Evidence from Local Pharmaceutical Markets (2024)
Working Paper: The Economics of the Public Option: Evidence from Local Pharmaceutical Markets (2022)
Working Paper: The Economics of the Public Option: Evidence from Local Pharmaceutical Markets (2021)
Working Paper: The Economics of the Public Option:Evidence from Local Pharmaceutical Markets (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:951

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