I’m not talking about disagreements, I’m talking about outright mistakes made by smart, intelligent people. Let me turn the floor over to Ariel Pakes, who may one day win a Nobel Prize:
Our calculations indicate that currently proposed U.S. policies to reduce pharmaceutical prices, while particularly beneficial for low-income populations and the elderly, could significantly reduce business investments in greatly welfare-enhancing R&D. The United States subsidizes the global pharmaceutical market. One reason is that prices in the United States are higher than elsewhere.
It’s from his new NBER working paperThis is supply-side progressivism at work, but stripped of any anti-business tendencies.
I don’t believe we should rule out those who want to lower pharmaceutical prices, even if they risk killing millions of people over time, at least to the extent that they succeed. (The supply is elastic!) But if we can love them, tolerate them, indeed to welcome integrate them into the intellectual community, we should also be kind to others. Because the faults of others are undoubtedly less serious than those of those who wish to lower the prices of American pharmaceutical products.
Please note that you may support greater government subsidies for drug R&D, but not want to see these prices lower.
