Who Benefits from Pharmaceutical Price Controls? Evidence from India

Presenter

Emma Boswell Dean, University of Miami

Discussant

Andrew Mulcahy, RAND Corporation

Host

Michael Clemens, Center for Global Development

With the goal of driving down drug costs, governments across the globe have instituted various forms of pharmaceutical price control policies. Understanding the impacts of such policies is particularly important in low- and middle-income countries, where lack of insurance coverage means that prices can serve as a barrier to access for patients and lack of effective quality control may allow for low-quality medicines in the market. In her paper, Emma Boswell Dean examines the theoretical effects of price controls in such markets and then measures the empirical effects of one implementation of pharmaceutical price controls, in which the Indian government placed price ceilings on a set of essential medicines.