NIH Licensing Would Benefit from Free-Market Provisions.

Government encouragement of free markets is a highly effective means of fostering pharmaceutical innovation; the NIH, by including "free-market provisions" in its licensing agreements that discourage anti-competitive and research-impeding behavior, can do a great deal to support this goal even without legislative overhaul.

A Free-Market Environmentalist Enquiry on Spain's Energy Transition along with Its Recent Increasing Electricity Prices.

This paper analyzes the Spanish energy transition's general situation and its increasing electricity prices in recent years from a free-market environmentalist (FME) approach. We hypothesize and argue that high taxes, high government subsidies, and government industrial access restrictions breach private property rights, hindering Spain's renewable energy (RE) development. Our paper discovers that Spain's state-interventionist policies have increased the cost of the energy and power industries, leading to electricity prices remaining relatively high before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. After reviewing the literature on the FME approach and Spain's case, a Box-Jenkins (ARIMA) model is used to clarify the economic performance of the Spanish electricity industry with a proposal for forecasting electricity prices. It is observed that Spain fails the EU and its national goal of providing an affordable energy price as a part of the green energy transition. Finally, free-market environmental solutions and policy reforms are proposed to facilitate Spain's energy transition.

Does a free-market economy make mother nature angry? Evidence from Asian economies.

The linkage between a free market and the environment has been under debate for a long time. In the traditional view, environmental issues are one of the free market's failures. However, a free market is a solution for environmental problems through the lens of free-market Environmentalism because free markets can be more successful than governments in solving environmental issues. Whether or not a free-market economy leads to environmental degradation and makes Mother Nature angry is a challengeable research gap. This paper fills this gap by examining the impact of a free-market on Mother Nature's anger in 35 Asian economies over the period 2000-2018. Our empirical results show that a free-market economy reduces the Mother Nature's anger (proxied by total number of deaths and total economic losses from natural disasters), and this beneficial impact is intensified with the improvement of property rights and government integrity. Our findings assert the important role of a free-market economy, property rights, and government integrity in mitigating the anger of Mother Nature.

Does free-market capitalism drive unequal access to health? An empirical analysis, 1970-2015.

Many scholars, particularly in public health, argue that neoliberal capitalist economic forces adversely affect communities by increasing inequalities, ultimately affecting health. Apparently, corporate capitalism affects health and communitarian concerns because governments place corporate profits over the publics interests. Using unique data collected by the Varieties of Democracy (VDEM) project that capture the degree of access of the poorest segments of society to health services comparable with those available to the richest segments, this study finds that an index of economic freedom robustly reduces inequality of access to health. We argue that these results obtain because greater exposure to global markets increases the premium on the productivity of labour, increasing incentives for political elites to invest in productivity-enhancing public goods. Our results are robust to a number of alternative models and data, and robust to instrumental variables analyses addressing potential endogeneity. Rather than free-market capitalism increasing health-related neglect of society, our data suggest that free-market capitalist conditions promote equitable access to health. This is good news for governments wishing to grow their economies, reform broken health systems for gaining advantages in a competitive global economy, and serve communitarian interests, such as shared good health.

Dentistry as a free market in the context of leading policymaking.

The purpose of this study was to disclose the psychological meaning structure of dentistry as a free market within the context of leading Swedish policymaking. Following the criteria for the descriptive phenomenological psychological method data was collected from leading policy makers about the experiential aspects of dentistry as a free market within the context of a welfare state. The analysis showed that dentistry as a free market was experienced as a complex business relationship between buyers and sellers that transcended the traditional dentist and patient roles. The lived experience of the proposed business transaction was based on two inherently conflicting views: the belief in the individual's ability to make a free choice versus the understanding that all individuals in a society do not have the ability or the means necessary to make a free choice. Dentistry as a free market within a welfare state, such as Sweden, can thus be seen as a persistent attempt to hold on to a compromise between two very distinctive political ideologies.

The EU legislation on "GMOs" between nonsense and protectionism: An ongoing Schumpeterian chain of public choices.

The EU regulation of agricultural biotechnology is botched and convoluted: the pseudo-concept of "Genetically Modified Organisms" has no coherent semantic or scientific content. The reasons of the paradox by which the cultivation of "GMOs" is substantially banned in Europe, while enormous quantities of recombinant-DNA cereals and legumes are imported to be used as feedstuff, are explained. The Directive 2015/412, giving Member states the choice to refuse the cultivation of genetically engineered crops at a national or local level, paves the way for a mosaic-like, Harlequinesque form of protectionism: nothing resembling a well-regulated free market. In the meantime, importation of "GMO" feed goes on at full speed all over Europe. A proposal by the Commission to adjust the rules on importation according to those for cultivation has been rejected by the Parliament.This dynamics may be seen as an ongoing "Schumpeterian" chain of public choices: the calculus of consent drives politicians more than a science-based approach to law-making. The EU should restart from scratch with the right concept, i.e. the careful examination of the pros and cons, the costs and benefits of each new agricultural product ("GMO" or otherwise), freely cultivated and/or imported, assessed case by case, at last acknowledging that the biotech processes used to create new varieties are of no practical or legal relevance. In doing so, the EU would pursue its stated "better regulation" approach, cancelling any sectoral and sectarian regulation.

The New and Old Europe: East-West Split in Pharmaceutical Spending.

HIGHLIGHTS Since the geopolitical developments of 1989, former centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe followed distinctively different pathways in national pharmaceutical expenditure evolution as compared to their free market Western European counterparts.Long term spending on pharmaceuticals expressed as percentage of total health expenditure was falling in free market economies as of 1989. Back in early 1990s it was at higher levels in transitional Eastern European countries and actually continued to grow further.Public financing share of total pharmaceutical expenditure was steadily falling in most Central and Eastern European countries over the recent few decades. Opposed scenario were EU-15 countries which successfully increased their public funding of prescription medicines for the sake of their citizens.Pace of annual increase in per capita spending on medicines in PPP terms, was at least 20% faster in Eastern Europe compared to their Western counterparts. During the same years, CEE region was expanding their pharmaceuticals share of health spending in eight fold faster annual rate compared to the EU 15.Private and out-of-pocket expenditure became dominant in former socialist countries. Affordability issues coupled with growing income inequality in transitional economies will present a serious challenge to equitable provision and sustainable financing of pharmaceuticals in the long run.

Achieving moral, high quality, affordable medical care in America through a true free market.

The basis of a just and moral economic model for health care is examined in the context of Catholic social teaching. The performance of the current model of "central economic planning" in medicine is evaluated in terms of the core principles of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and compared to freedom-based economic models. It is clear that the best way to respect and serve human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity in medicine is through the establishment of a true, free-market health economy. Lay Summary : This article reviews the impact of recent healthcare reforms as well as traditional "third party payment" models for healthcare financing in America (insurance). Impact on patients and doctors are evaluated in the context of Catholic social doctrine and the Catechism. The many shortcomings and negative consequences of an economy planned centrally by government are compared to the benefits of a true free-market medical economy with empowered individuals. The analysis shows that interference in the patient-physician relationship and the centrally planned medical economy itself violates Catholic teachings, harms patients and doctors, and create morally evil outcomes and economic structures.

La educación y la prevención como componentes primordiales en la actitud hacia las políticas de drogas / Education and prevention as principal components in attitudes toward drugs policies

Las políticas para el manejo de las drogas en el mundo han sido principalmente prohibicionistas, han tenido un alto costo social, político y económico y pobres resultados en la disminución de la producción, el tráfico y el consumo de drogas. Este estudio piloto indagó la aceptabilidad frente a diversas políticas de drogas de 100 ciudadanos y ciudadanas corrientes de Bogotá-Colombia muestreados aleatoriamente. Para recoger los datos se usó un instrumento de 12 escenarios con dos conceptos fundamentales: el compromiso del Estado con la prevención y educación, y los tipos de políticas de los Estados. Los resultados se obtuvieron con análisis de varianzas y un análisis de componentes principales. Encontramos que las personas tienen un mayor nivel de aceptabilidad hacia las políticas de reglamentación, menor aceptabilidad hacia las políticas de libre mercado y que las personas tienen mayor aceptabilidad cuando el Estado se compromete con campañas de educación y prevención.

Drugs policies around the world have been mainly prohibitionists. It have had a high social, political and economic price and poor results in decreasing production, trafficking and drugs consumption. In this pilot research, we studied the level of acceptability of various drugs policies, among 100 ordinary people, men and women, sampled randomly. To collect data we used 12 scenarios with two fundamental concepts: State's commitment with prevention and education and drugs policies. The results were extracted by variance analysis and a principal component analysis. We found that people had a major level of acceptability with regulatory policies than of free market policies. Moreover people had a major level of acceptability when the State was commitment with education and prevention.