01121nam a22001457a 4500 525955 525955 240426b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d Atal, Juan Pablo et al 51910 The economics of the public option: Evidence from local pharmaceutical markets The American Economic Review 114(3), Mar, 2024: p.615-644 We study the effects of competition by state-owned firms, leveraging the decentralized entry of public pharmacies to local markets in Chile. Public pharmacies sell the same drugs at a third of private pharmacy prices, because of stronger upstream bargaining and market power in the private sector, but are of lower quality. Public pharmacies induced market segmentation and price increases in the private sector, which benefited the switchers to the public option but harmed the stayers. The countrywide entry of public pharmacies would reduce yearly consumer drug expenditure by 1.6 percent.- Reproduced https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20211547 The American Economic Review ECONOMICS AR 0 0 ddc 0 0 401009 IIPA IIPA 2024-04-26 114(3), Mar, 2024: p.615-644 AR131748 2024-04-26 AR