Wegovy and Ozempic are weight loss drugs that promise to transform the treatment of obesity, heart disease and other chronic conditions that afflict millions of Americans. But while everyone agrees these drugs have the potential to transform lives, no one can agree on how best to pay for them. Wegovy sells for a list price ' or price before discounts ' of $1,349 per month in the U.S. The same drug lists for $265 in Canada and less than half of that in the U.K. These dramatic differences illustrate a larger issue: The list price of patented drugs in the U.S. are far higher than in other rich countries. As a health economist who writes about innovations in the health sector, I have spent a good portion of the past five years thinking about these questions. What I've learned is that high list prices for drugs don't tell us much about who is screwing whom. To truly understand the problem of drug pricing in the U.S., you need to start with the tricky economics of the PBMs, or pharmacy benefit managers....

Late in December 2023, the former top editor of The New York Times' editorial page, James Bennet, dropped a bombshell in an article for The Economist. 'The leadership of the New York Times is losing control of its principles,' he wrote, saying slanted coverage at the institution is 'pervasive.' In the article, Bennet talked about the pressures driving what he called 'liberal bias' at one of the world's most influential newspapers. While recounting his final days at The New York Times ' he resigned amid controversy in 2020 over an op-ed by Republican Senator Tom Cotton ' he also discussed what economists call demand- and supply-side factors behind the rise of media bias. Demand-driven bias happens when newspapers offer slanted news to appeal to readers. Supply-driven bias stems from the ideological leanings of owners or employees. Bennet indicated that both had influenced decision-making at The New York Times. To be fair, not everyone agreed with Bennet's diagnosis ' not least the current leadership at The New York Times. But people across the political spectrum tend to agree that media bias is a problem, and not just at the Times....

From 1960 to 1989, South Korea experienced a famous economic boom, with real GDP per capita growing by an annual average of 6.82 percent. Many observers have attributed this to industrial policy, the practice of giving government support to specific industrial sectors. In this case, industrial policy is often thought to have powered a generation of growth. Did it, though' An innovative study by four scholars, including two MIT economists, suggests that overall GDP growth attributable to industrial policy is relatively limited. Using global trade data to evaluate changes in industrial capacity within countries, the research finds that industrial policy raises long-run GDP by only 1.08 percent in generally favorable circumstances, and up to 4.06 percent if additional factors are aligned ' a distinctly smaller gain than an annually compounding rate of 6.82 percent. The study is meaningful not just because of the bottom-line numbers, but for the reasons behind them. The research indicates, for instance, that local consumer demand can curb the impact of industrial policy. Even when a country alters its output, demand for those goods may not shift as extensively, putting a ceiling on directed growth....

In Ghana, the rate of maternal deaths is 263 per 100,000 births. Although this maternal mortality rate is much lower than the average for African countries (532 per 100,000 births), progress is being threatened by the financial difficulties mothers face accessing maternal healthcare services in the country. As researchers in maternal health and health economics, we conducted a study in two regions of Ghana looking at the extra expenses mothers with newborn babies and their households face when seeking maternal healthcare. This can strain household's budgets, affecting the ability to afford other basic needs including food, clothing and shelter. In some instances it may force mothers to forgo treatment due to an inability to pay. The Ashanti region is located in the southern half of Ghana and is the country's second most urbanised and prosperous region. The Ashanti region also has the highest active public national health insurance membership, of about 2.2 million members. We collected the data through exit interviews at both public and private healthcare facilities. We wanted to understand the financial challenges faced by mothers across various settings and service providers....