IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3783.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Australian Pharmaceutical Subsidy Gambit: Transmuting Deadweight Loss and Oligopoly Rents to Consumer Surplus

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Johnston
  • Richard Zeckhauser

Abstract

Australia pays less than other developed nations for her pharmaceuticals, about 45% as much as the United States. She achieves this result with an ingenious price-contingent subsidy scheme, which turns deadweight loss (due to pricing above marginal cost) into consumer surplus. Pharmaceutical companies are offered a per unit subsidy from the government for selling their product at marginal cost in the Australian market. The subsidy is calibrated to enable the companies to recover what they would otherwise receive in monopoly profits. When two or more firms possess market power for a particular therapeutic use, the subsidy scheme creates a game -- in effect a race -- to determine who joins first and reaps most of the benefits. Properly constructed, the game transfers significant oligopoly profits to the consumer. Australia's success -- she reaps benefits equal to 15% of its drug expenditures stems in part from her small size and geographic isolation. She can free ride on drug research, and can work her scheme almost without notice.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Johnston & Richard Zeckhauser, 1991. "The Australian Pharmaceutical Subsidy Gambit: Transmuting Deadweight Loss and Oligopoly Rents to Consumer Surplus," NBER Working Papers 3783, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3783
    Note: EH IO
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nber.org/papers/w3783.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1971. "The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(4), pages 561-574, September.
    2. Glenn C. Loury, 1979. "Market Structure and Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(3), pages 395-410.
    3. Mortensen, Dale T, 1982. "Property Rights and Efficiency in Mating, Racing, and Related Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 968-979, December.
    4. Putnam, Robert D., 1988. "Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 427-460, July.
    5. Richard E. Romano, 1988. "A Monopolist Should Always Be Subsidized No Matter How High the Excess Burden," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 21(4), pages 871-873, November.
    6. Reekie, W Duncan, 1978. "Price and Quality Competition in the United States Drug Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 223-237, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lopez-Casasnovas, Guillem & Puig-Junoy, Jaume, 2000. "Review of the literature on reference pricing," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 87-123, November.
    2. Takahiko Kiso, 2022. "A Subsidy That is Inversely Related to the Product Price," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(646), pages 2173-2206.
    3. Michael Kremer, 2001. "Creating Markets for New Vaccines - Part I: Rationale," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 1, pages 35-72, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Elamin H. Elbasha, 2003. "Deadweight loss of bacterial resistance due to overtreatment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(2), pages 125-138, February.
    5. Michael Kremer, 2001. "Creating Markets for New Vaccines - Part II: Design Issues," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 1, pages 73-118, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Michael Kremer, 1998. "Patent Buyouts: A Mechanism for Encouraging Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1137-1167.
    7. Kremer, Michael R., 1998. "Patent Buyouts: A Mechanism for Encouraging Innovation," Scholarly Articles 3693705, Harvard University Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kondor, Péter & Zawadowski, Adam, 2019. "Learning in crowded markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    2. Gilbert, Richard J. & Katz, Michael L., 2011. "Efficient division of profits from complementary innovations," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 443-454, July.
    3. David Moroz, 2005. "Production of Scientific Knowledge and Radical Uncertainty: The Limits of the Normative Approach in Innovation Economics," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 305-322, November.
    4. Peter-J. Jost, 2021. "Endogenous formation of entrepreneurial networks," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 39-64, January.
    5. Erzo G. J. Luttmer, 2021. "Dynamic Urn-Ball Discovery," Working Papers 789, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    6. Vayanos, Dimitri & Wang, Jiang, 2013. "Market Liquidity—Theory and Empirical Evidence ," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1289-1361, Elsevier.
    7. Johan Lagerlöf, 2004. "Are We Better Off if Our Politicians Have More Information?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(1), pages 123-142, March.
    8. Lueck, Dean & Miceli, Thomas J., 2007. "Property Law," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 183-257, Elsevier.
      • Dean Lueck & Thomas J. Miceli, 2004. "Property Law," Working papers 2004-04, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    9. Baye, Michael R. & Hoppe, Heidrun C., 2003. "The strategic equivalence of rent-seeking, innovation, and patent-race games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 217-226, August.
    10. Laurent d'Ursel, 1983. "Politiques de « non-prix » : Equilibre et optimum," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 34(6), pages 1057-1088.
    11. Thomas J. Miceli, 2009. "Deterrence and Incapacitation Models of Criminal Punishment: Can the Twain Meet?," Working papers 2009-25, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    12. Kopp, Andreas, 1999. "Direct Communication, Costs of Networking and Localisation of Technical Knowledge," ERSA conference papers ersa99pa386, European Regional Science Association.
    13. Miceli Thomas J., 2012. "Deterred or Detained? A Unified Model of Criminal Punishment," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-20, March.
    14. Yim, Hyung Rok, 2008. "Quality shock vs. market shock: Lessons from recently established rapidly growing U.S. startups," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 141-164, March.
    15. Kopp, Andreas, 1999. "Direct communication, costs of networking and localisation of technical knowledge," Kiel Working Papers 903, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. Heine Klaus & Mause Karsten, 2003. "Politikberatung als informationsökonomisches Problem," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 223(4), pages 479-490, August.
    17. Martin Grossmann & Helmut Dietl, 2007. "Optimal Allocation of Heterogeneous Agents in Contests," Working Papers 0071, University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU).
    18. Konrad, Kai A., 2007. "Strategy in contests: an introduction [Strategie in Turnieren – eine Einführung]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2007-01, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    19. Florian Scheuer & Casey Rothschild, 2011. "Rent Seeking and Optimal Taxation," 2011 Meeting Papers 1262, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Thomas J. Miceli, 2008. "Deterrence, Incapacitation, and Repeat Offenders," Working papers 2008-44, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3783. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.