NBER Publications by Paul Ellickson

The main goal of this paper is to develop an empirical framework for evaluating the patient welfare benefits arising from pharmaceutical innovation. Extending previous studies of the welfare benefits from innovation (Trajtenberg, 1990; Hausman, 1996), this paper unpacks the separate choices made by physicians and patients in pharmaceutical decisionmaking and develops an estimable econometric model which reflects these choices. Our proposed estimator for patient welfare depends on (a) whether patients comply with the prescriptions they receive from physicians and (b) the motives of physicians in their prescription behavior. By focusing on compliance behavior, the proposed welfare measure reflects a specific economic choice made by patients. We review evidence that the rate of noncompli...