Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Department

Economics

Additional Departmental Affiliation

Finance

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Insulin is often cited as a classic near perfectly inelastic good; for those living with Type-1 diabetes, antihyperglycemic medicines are the only thing standing between them and possible death, and they must be willing to pay for the medication regardless of the price. When researchers at the University of Toronto released the patent for insulin in 1922, they asked for only $1 so that the medication would be available to as many people as possible; however, as insulin analogs and new biosimilar substitutes have been invented, the price of medications has increased substantially. While the rising cost of insulin has been well researched, many of these studies focus on nominal prices and mean spending across a period of time. Building on previous research, this study utilizes fixed effects regression and instrumental variables to specifically analyze how the passage of time has affected out-of-pocket spending on insulin to discover if these estimates over- or underestimate the true nature of price changes to diabetic patients’ out of-pocket prescription expenditures.

Advisor(s) or Committee Chair

Dr. Stephen Locke, Dr. David Zimmer, Dr. Christopher Keller

Disciplines

Econometrics | Economics | Health Economics

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