From the consumers' perspective, prices for goods and services are always too high. From the producers' perspective, they are always too low. Competition usually ensures that neither side can impose its differing price interests overwhelmingly, thus maximizing overall welfare. But what happens when competition is restricted by the government? What happens to overall welfare when a producer is granted a monopoly position in different countries that also strictly isolate themselves from one another? What role do national maximum price regulations play in this context?

This book addresses these questions. At its core is a typical patent-protected market, the pharmaceutical market. The multi-layered analysis shows that lifting the ban on parallel imports can indeed enhance welfare, but it does not lead to either the most efficient or the second most efficient solution. Furthermore, this book develops the legal and economic foundations for parallel imports and presents a simple implementation pathway for Ramsey prices in a global pharmaceutical market.