Identifying Industry Margins with Price Constraints: Structural Estimation on Pharmaceuticals
构建结构性模型研究法国药品价格管制对需求和厂商定价行为的影响，利用跨国成本差异推断约束是否有效，反事实模拟显示价格约束仅节省2%费用但导致消费从仿制药转向品牌药。
We develop a structural model to investigate the effects of pharmaceutical price regulation on demand and on manufacturers’ price-setting behavior in France. We estimate price-cost margins in a regulated market with price constraints and infer whether these constraints are binding, exploiting cost restrictions across drugs, which come from observing the same drugs in potentially price-constrained markets (France) and in markets where prices are unregulated (United States and Germany). Our counterfactual simulations suggest that price constraints generated modest savings for anti-ulcer drugs in 2003–2013 (2 percent of total expenses), relative to a free pricing scenario, and shifted consumption from generic to branded drugs.