Mortality and Socioeconomic Consequences of Prescription Opioids: Evidence from State Policies

Robert Kaestner and Engy Ziedan

No 26135, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This article presents estimates of the effects of state prescription opioid policies on prescription opioid sales, mortality and socioeconomic outcomes of adults. Results indicate that state implementation of a “modern” PDMP is associated with decreases in opioid sales of between 5% and 20% and that pill mill laws are associated with a decrease in opioid sales of between 15% and 50%. The reductions in prescription opioid sales associated with these state policies were, in general, not associated with statistically significant effects on mortality. In the case of socioeconomic outcomes, we found consistent evidence that the adoption of a “modern” PDMP was associated with small, but statistically significant reductions in employment of 1% to 2% across all demographic groups examined; small reductions in earnings that were not statistically significant and similarly small, marginally significant increases in receipt of public assistance, particularly for women; and a significant, but small (1%) decline in the probability of being married among females. In contrast, pill mill laws were associated with marginally significant increases in employment of 1% to 2%, but only among those ages 18 to 25; small, but insignificant increases in earnings of males of between 2% to 4%; and a significant, but small (1%) decline in the probability of being married among all demographic groups.

JEL-codes: I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
Note: EH LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26135.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26135

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26135

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().