Peter J. Hammer J.D., Ph.D.
Director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights
Professor
Wayne State University Law School
Email: phammer@wayne.edu
Discipline: Economics, Law
Expertise: Competition / Markets
Investigator Award 
Competing on Quality of Care: Comparing Antitrust Law to Market RealityAward Year: 1998 Although quality has been extensively analyzed in health services research, its role in competition policy has not been elucidated. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the potential for competition policy to protect and improve health care quality, and to determine how best to structure oversight of a competitive marketplace, encouraging appropriate tradeoffs between price and quality. Drs. Sage and Hammer approach these problems through the lens of antitrust law, the government's principal tool to promote competition in health care and other industries. They examine the health care regulatory environment and specific aspects of regulation designed to further noncompetitive goals such as community rating laws, tax subsidies, and entitlements. Changes to antitrust law and the surrounding regulatory environment are prescribed, attempting to resolve trade-offs between price and non-price competition, and between competitive and noncompetitive objectives in current health law and policy.
Background 
Peter J. Hammer is the director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights and a professor at the Wayne State University Law School. Previously, he was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in the Department of Health Management and Policy. At Wayne State, Professor Hammer has helped redesign the school's health law curriculum. His work focuses on the study of federal antitrust law and the legal issues surrounding changes in the health care industry. Professor Hammer maintains an active interest in international human rights and questions of law & development.
- Hammer, P.J. Arrow's Analysis of Social Institutions: Entering the Market-place with Giving Hands? In Uncertain Times: Kenneth Arrow and the Changing Economics of Health Care, eds. Hammer, P.J., Haas-Wilson, D., Peterson, M.A., Sage, W.M. Durham: Duke U
- Hammer, P.J. Medical Antitrust Reform: Arrow, Coase, and the Changing Structure of the Firm, In The Privatization of Health Care Reform: Legal and Regulatory Perspectives, ed. Bloche, M.G. Oxford University Press, Inc., 2002.
- Hammer, P.J. Competition and Quality as Dynamic Processes in the Balkans of American Health Care. JHPPL, 2006, 31(3): 473-96.
- Hammer, P.J., Sage, W.M. Critical Issues in Hospital Antitrust Law. Health Affairs, 2003, 22(6): 88-100.
- Sage, W., Hammer, P. Antitrust, Health Care Quality, and the Courts. Columbia Law Review, 2002, 102(3): 545-649.
- Hammer, P.J. Arrow's analysis of social institutions: Entering the marketplace with giving hands? JHPPL, 2001, 26(5): 1081-97.
- Hammer, P.J., Haas-Wilson, D., Sage, W.M. Kenneth Arrow and the Changing Economics of Health Care: Why Arrow? Why Now?
- Hammer, P.J. Antitrust beyond Competition: Market Failures, Total Welfare, and the Challenge of Intramarket Second-Best Tradeoffs. Michigan Law Review, 2000, 98(4): 849-925.
- Sage, W.M., Hammer, P.J. Competing on Quality of Care: The Need to Develop a Competition Policy for Health Care Markets. University of Michigan J of Law Reform, 1999, 32(4): 1069-1118.