The Elasticity of Demand With Respect to Product Failures; or Why the Market for Quack Medicines Flourished for More Than 150 Years

Between 1810 and 1939, real per capita spending on patent medicines grew by a factor of 114; real per capita GDP by a factor of 5. The long-term growth and survival this industry is puzzling when juxtaposed with standard historical accounts, which typically portray patent medicines as quack medicines. This paper argues that patent medicines were distinguished from other products by an unusually low elasticity of demand with respect to product failure. While consumers in other markets stopped searching for a viable product after a few failed attempts, consumers of patent medicines kept trying different products, irrespective of the number of failed medicines they observed. The market expanded as the stock of people buying potential cures accumulated over time. Because no one was ever cured and consumers possessed a highly inelastic demand with respect to product failures, demand was unrelenting. In short, patent medicines flourished not despite their dubious medicinal qualities, but because of them. There is also evidence that genuine medical advances, such as the rise of the germ theory of disease and new therapeutic interventions, helped expand the market for quack medicines.

Can drug price hikes via debranding be prevented?

Steep price hikes following the debranding of off-patent medicines are becoming increasingly common in the UK, adding hundreds of millions to the NHS drugs bill. But can anything be done to prevent this

Journal of another plague year

Recent years have seen a catalogue of plagues and sundry other contagions. Hard on the scaly heels of avian flu follows global warming, swine flu, obesity, and now the economic plague. This litany of woes has affect’d me deeply, as these few entries from my diary this past year shew. Rose early to enjoy reading the latest bill of mortality of estate agents in the Parish of St Giles, which show’d again a monthly increase. The Bankers, too, have this past year been struck low, and it transpires that their understanding of the term "Bank" has left much to be desired; they have been sinking our shillings in miscellaneous crackpot schemes in the Colonies that few understand, and fewer profit from: to wit, hedge funds, subprime mortgages, Ponzi schemes, plans to build golden stairways to the moon, and God knows how many other feeble minded schemes

Medical advertising in the Wrexham press, 1855-1906

This is the author's PDF version of a book chapter published by Oak Knoll Press & The British Library© 2005.This book chapter discusses the variety of medical advertisements found in Wrexham newspapers from 1855 to 1906

Pharmacy, Law, and the U.C.C., and Patent Medicines

The primary legal concern of the pharmacist has been and continues to be in the field of negligence. With the increasing legal awareness of society, however, it becomes imperative to examine what liabilities may arise under the U.C.C. The main objective of this paper is to explore the possible areas of liability that may arise under the Code in the sale of patent medicines by the pharmacist

Pharmacy, Law, and the U.C.C., and Patent Medicines

The primary legal concern of the pharmacist has been and continues to be in the field of negligence. With the increasing legal awareness of society, however, it becomes imperative to examine what liabilities may arise under the U.C.C. The main objective of this paper is to explore the possible areas of liability that may arise under the Code in the sale of patent medicines by the pharmacist

The Determinants of Progressive Era Reform: The Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906

We examine three theories of Progressive Era regulation: public interest, industry capture, and information manipulation by the federal bureaucracy and muckraking press. Based on analysis of qualitative legislative histories and econometric evidence, we argue that the adoption of the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act was due to all three factors. Select producer groups sought regulation to tilt the competitive playing field to their advantage. Progressive reform interests desired regulation to reduce uncertainty about food and drug quality. Additionally, rent-seeking by the muckraking press and its bureaucratic allies played a key role in the timing of the legislation. We also find that because the interests behind regulation could not shape the enforcing agency or the legal environment in which enforcement took place, these groups did not ultimately benefit from regulation in the ways originally anticipated.

The Struggle for Federal Food and Drugs Legislation

In this paper we evaluate the application of convex optimization for PAPR reduction on OFDM 802.11a signal type. A radio frequency power amplifier is measured and characterized while excited by both original and optimized OFDM signals. A state-of-art test setup was used for the purpose. Figure of merits such as power added efficiency, in-band errors, and out-of-band spectral emissions are investigated for their relevance and a study of the power distribution in the excitation signal is evaluated.©2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEEKK