Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient? Evidence from Prescription Drugs
Alan Garber and Jonathan Skinner (2008) famously conjectured that the US health care system was "uniquely inefficient" relative to other countries. We test this idea using cross-country data on prescription drug sales newly linked with an arguably objective measure of relative therapeutic...
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| Format: | Article |
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American Economic Association
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/114277 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4364-1505 |
| _version_ | 1811076760977014784 |
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| author | Kyle, Margaret Williams, Heidi L |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics Kyle, Margaret Williams, Heidi L |
| author_sort | Kyle, Margaret |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Alan Garber and Jonathan Skinner (2008) famously conjectured that the US health care system was "uniquely inefficient" relative to other countries. We test this idea using cross-country data on prescription drug sales newly linked with an arguably objective measure of relative therapeutic benefits, or drug quality. Specifically, we investigate how higher and lower quality drugs diffuse in the US relative to Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and the UK. Our tabulations suggest that lower quality drugs diffuse more in the US relative to high quality drugs compared to each of our four comparison countries--consistent with Garber and Skinner's conjecture. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:27:03Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/114277 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:27:03Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | American Economic Association |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1142772022-09-30T21:15:17Z Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient? Evidence from Prescription Drugs Kyle, Margaret Williams, Heidi L Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics Williams, Heidi L Alan Garber and Jonathan Skinner (2008) famously conjectured that the US health care system was "uniquely inefficient" relative to other countries. We test this idea using cross-country data on prescription drug sales newly linked with an arguably objective measure of relative therapeutic benefits, or drug quality. Specifically, we investigate how higher and lower quality drugs diffuse in the US relative to Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and the UK. Our tabulations suggest that lower quality drugs diffuse more in the US relative to high quality drugs compared to each of our four comparison countries--consistent with Garber and Skinner's conjecture. National Institute on Aging National Institutes of Health (U.S.). Office of the Director (grant U01-AG046708) 2018-03-23T19:51:27Z 2018-03-23T19:51:27Z 2017-05 2018-03-01T18:56:38Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0002-8282 1944-7981 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/114277 Kyle, Margaret, and Heidi Williams. “Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient? Evidence from Prescription Drugs.” American Economic Review 107, no. 5 (May 2017): 486–490. © 2017 American Economic Association https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4364-1505 http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/AER.P20171086 American Economic Review Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Economic Association American Economic Association |
| spellingShingle | Kyle, Margaret Williams, Heidi L Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient? Evidence from Prescription Drugs |
| title | Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient? Evidence from Prescription Drugs |
| title_full | Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient? Evidence from Prescription Drugs |
| title_fullStr | Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient? Evidence from Prescription Drugs |
| title_full_unstemmed | Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient? Evidence from Prescription Drugs |
| title_short | Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient? Evidence from Prescription Drugs |
| title_sort | is american health care uniquely inefficient evidence from prescription drugs |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/114277 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4364-1505 |
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