Economic Conditions, Illicit Drug Use, and Substance Use Disorders in the United States

Christopher Carpenter, Chandler McClellan and Daniel Rees

No 22051, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We provide the first analysis of the relationship between economic conditions and the use of illicit drugs other than marijuana. Drawing on US data from 2002-2013, we find mixed evidence with regard to the cyclicality of illicit drug use. However, there is strong evidence that economic downturns lead to increases in substance use disorders involving hallucinogens and prescription pain relievers. These effects are robust to a variety of specification choices and are concentrated among prime-age white males with low educational attainment. We conclude that the returns to spending on the treatment of substance use disorders are particularly high during economic downturns.

JEL-codes: E32 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-lab and nep-mac
Note: EH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published as Carpenter, Christopher S. & McClellan, Chandler B. & Rees, Daniel I., 2017. "Economic conditions, illicit drug use, and substance use disorders in the United States," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 63-73.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w22051.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Economic conditions, illicit drug use, and substance use disorders in the United States (2017)
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:22051

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w22051

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 ().