ABSTRACT
The demand for pharmaceuticals has not been studied as much as the demand for medical care in general. Nevertheless, it is possible to consider the empirical work that has been done and to make some interesting inferences from economic theory and from the empirical evidence that does exist about the demand for pharmaceuticals. I begin this chapter by considering pharmaceuticals as an input into a theoretical health production function. The next section considers demand theory and the effects of insurance upon the demand for pharmaceuticals. The final section surveys the empirical evidence on the demand for pharmaceuticals.
