Eric Yde, a fourth-year PhD candidate, presented his paper "Regulating Vertical Relationships in Prescription Drug Markets: Evidence from Medicaid" in a Health Economics Research Organization (HERO) session at the Allied Social Science Associations (ASSA) annual meeting.

Eric's paper examines the role that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) play in determining the price of drugs in Medicaid, the public insurance program for low-income households. He finds that Medicaid drug prices declined by 17% in states that required insurers and PBMs to switch from fixed-fee to cost-plus contracts, which he attributes to the price transparency created by the regulations.

The paper is available on SSRN.