Entry of new pharmacies in the deregulated Norwegian pharmaceuticals market--Consequences for costs and availability

Niklas Rudholm

Health Policy, 2008, vol. 87, issue 2, 258-263

Abstract: Objectives The objective of this study is to analyze the impact of the new regulation concerning entry of pharmacies into the Norwegian pharmaceuticals market in 2001 on cost and availability of pharmaceutical products.Methods In order to study costs, a translog cost function is estimated using data from the annual reports of a sample of Norwegian pharmacies before and after the deregulation of the market. Linear regression models for the number of pharmacies in each region in Norway are also estimated.Results The results show that the costs of the individual pharmacies have not decreased as a consequence of the deregulation of the Norwegian pharmaceuticals market. The deregulation of the market did, however, increase the availability to pharmacy services substantially.Conclusions Increased availability of pharmacy services can be achieved by deregulating pharmaceutical markets as in Norway, but at the expense of increased costs for the pharmacies.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168-8510(07)00254-0
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:hepoli:v:87:y:2008:i:2:p:258-263

Access Statistics for this article

Health Policy is currently edited by Katrien Kesteloot, Mia Defever and Irina Cleemput

More articles in Health Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu () and ().