title: Characteristics of demand for pharmaceutical products: an examination of four cephalosporins.
abstract: We model demand for four cephalosporins and compute own- and cross-price elasticities between branded and generic versions of the four drugs. We model demand as a multistage budgeting problem, and we argue that such a model is appropriate to the multistage nature of the purchase of pharmaceutical products, in particular the prescribing and dispensing stages. We find quite high elasticities between generic substitutes and also significant elasticities between some therapeutic substitutes.
authors.affiliation: MIT, USA. sellison@mit.edu
authors.forename: S F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Ellison
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Cockburn
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Griliches
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hausman
mesh_terms: D002511:Cephalosporins / Q000191:economics; D016527:Drug Costs; D016568:Drugs, Generic / Q000191:economics; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D017059:Models, Econometric; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000191:economics; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D002511:Cephalosporins; D016568:Drugs, Generic; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations