EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

A primer on the economics of re-importation of prescription drugs

Ernst R. Berndt

Managerial and Decision Economics, 2007, vol. 28, issue 4-5, 415-435

Abstract: Using the basic tools of intermediate microeconomic theory (such as taught at the level of undergraduate or first-year MBA courses), in this primer I present a framework that helps the reader gain an understanding of economic issues underlying the current political economy debates concerning the impacts on consumers (both US and ex-US) and on prescription pharmaceutical manufacturers of moving to a world with more uniform pricing across countries than is currently the case. The impact on global revenues and profitability of moving from differential to uniform global pricing is relatively modest if confined to the North American (US and Canadian) market, with only Canadians bearing the brunt of higher prices, a most unlikely political economy outcome. The impacts on global revenues and profitability from global uniform prices become considerably larger, however, when one incorporates the much larger entire ex-US market, including not only Canada, but also Europe, Asia and other countries. I conclude with some observations on likely longer term outcomes. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/mde.1348 Link to full text; subscription required (text/html)

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:wly:mgtdec:v:28:y:2007:i:4-5:p:415-435

DOI: 10.1002/mde.1348

Access Statistics for this article

Managerial and Decision Economics is currently edited by Antony Dnes

More articles in Managerial and Decision Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-20
Handle: RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:28:y:2007:i:4-5:p:415-435