Economics at the FTC: Hospital Mergers,Authorized Generic Drugs,and Consumer Credit Markets

Economists at the Federal Trade Commission pursue the agency’s competition and consumer protection missions. In this year’s essay, in antitrust, we discuss various aspects of our hospital merger analyses as well as the effects of authorized generic drugs on consumers and competition. In consumer protection, we describe two ongoing studies on the use of credit-based insurance scores to price homeowners insurance, and the accuracy of consumers’ credit reports that are provided by credit bureaus.