Government Granted Monopolies Lead to Corruption: The Case of Prescription Drugs

There is a large economic literature that shows how trade protection, that might raise the price of products by 15-20 percent, leads to political corruption. The argument is that the beneficiaries of this protection will use their political power to try to maximize the rents they get from this protection.

For some reason economists have not shown the same concern over the granting of patent monopolies which can raises the price of the protected product many thousand percent above the free ma...