Is the Rise in Illicit Opioids Affecting Labor Supply and Disability Claiming Rates?

Sujeong Park and David Powell

No 27804, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: There is considerable interest in understanding the broader effects of the opioid crisis on labor supply and social insurance programs in the United States. This paper examines how the recent transition of the opioid crisis from prescription opioids to more prevalent misuse of illicit opioids, such as heroin and fentanyl, altered labor supply behavior and disability insurance claiming rates. We exploit differential geographic exposure to the reformulation of OxyContin, the largest reduction in access to abusable prescription opioids to date, to study the effects of substitution to illicit markets. We observe meaningful reductions in labor supply measured in terms of employment-to-population ratios, hours worked, and earnings. We also find significant increases in disability applications and beneficiaries. These labor supply and disability insurance shifts begin immediately after reformulation and are uniquely associated with pre-reformulation rates of OxyContin misuse, not rates of broader pain reliever misuse.

JEL-codes: H55 I12 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-ias and nep-lma
Note: EH LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published as Park, Sujeong & Powell, David, 2021. "Is the rise in illicit opioids affecting labor supply and disability claiming rates?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27804.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Is the rise in illicit opioids affecting labor supply and disability claiming rates? (2021)
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:27804

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27804

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 ().