Prescription Drug Prices and the United States' Health Care Market, A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Abstract

This thesis is an analysis of the United States health care market and what factors most significantly influence spending habits. The data obtained for this study is from 2004 and was collected for each state through various institutions and publications. Various statistical models are used in this thesis in order to find the most influential variables in regards to health care spending. After this analysis, two-stage least squares is used to compensate for any simultaneity issues and improve the quality of the results, if possible. This study concludes that prescription drug prices have a significant impact on health care expenditures.