Publications
Publications
- Forthcoming
- American Economic Review: Insights
Internal Deadlines, Drug Approvals, and Safety Problems
By: Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun and Danielle Li
Abstract
Absent explicit quotas, incentives, reporting, or fiscal year-end motives, drug approvals around the world surge in December, at month-ends, and before respective major national holidays. Drugs approved before these informal deadlines are associated with significantly more adverse effects, including more hospitalizations, life-threatening incidents, and deaths—particularly, drugs most rushed through the approval process. These patterns are consistent with a model in which regulators rush to meet internal production benchmarks associated with salient calendar periods: this “desk-clearing” behavior results in more lax review, leading both to increased output and increased safety issues at particular—and predictable—periodicities over the year.
Keywords
Health; Economics; Government and Politics; Innovation and Invention; Research; Science; Biotechnology Industry; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry
Citation
Cohen, Lauren, Umit Gurun, and Danielle Li. "Internal Deadlines, Drug Approvals, and Safety Problems." American Economic Review: Insights (forthcoming).