Must access laws for opioid prescription and county gross domestic product: evidence from the US

Srikant Devaraj, Pankaj C. Patel and Michael Hicks

Applied Economics Letters, 2021, vol. 28, issue 3, 196-200

Abstract: We estimate the impact of must access laws on county-level GDP. Specifically, we exploit the variation in must access law between neighbouring counties across state border during 2010 and 2016. To curb the misuse of opioids, states have implemented Prescription Drug Monitoring Programmes (PDMPs), a system accessible to authorized prescribers and/or dispensers to check a patient’s opioid prescription history. A stricter type of PDMP is the ‘must access’ law that requires access to the state’s PDMP system before prescribing or dispensing opioids. We find that a county with must access law had a 3.7% higher real GDP than the neighbouring county across state border without must access law. Extending recent studies on health and labour market impact of prescription opioids, and with opioid epidemic declared a public health emergency, the findings have implications for policymakers.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2020.1740155

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