Working Paper: NBER ID: w27544
Authors: Janet Currie; Hannes Schwandt
Abstract: Without the opioid epidemic, American life expectancy would not have declined prior to 2020. In turn, the epidemic was sparked by the development and marketing of a new generation of prescription opioids and provider behavior is still helping to drive it. There is little relationship between the opioid crisis and contemporaneous measures of labor market opportunity. Cohorts and areas that experienced poor labor market conditions do show lagged increases in opioid mortality, but the effect is modest relative to the scale of the epidemic. Instead, we argue that there are specific policies and features of the U.S. health care market that led to the current crisis. It will not be possible to quickly reverse depressed economic conditions, but it is possible to implement policies that would reduce the number of new opioid addicts and save the lives of many of those who are already addicted.
Keywords: Opioid Epidemic; Economic Distress; Health Policy; Prescription Opioids
JEL Codes: I12; I14
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| development and aggressive marketing of prescription opioids (L65) | rising addiction rates (I12) |
| majority of opioid deaths occur in regions with low unemployment rates (R23) | economic distress is not the primary driver of the epidemic (H84) |
| structure of the U.S. healthcare market (I11) | exacerbation of the opioid crisis (H84) |
| healthcare policies and provider behavior (I18) | opioid epidemic (I12) |
| poor labor market conditions (J48) | lagged increases in opioid deaths (I12) |
| economic conditions (E66) | opioid mortality (I12) |