IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/22051.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher S. Carpenter
  • Chandler B. McClellan
  • Daniel I. Rees

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher S. Carpenter & Chandler B. McClellan & Daniel I. Rees, 2016. "Economic Conditions, Illicit Drug Use, and Substance Use Disorders in the United States," NBER Working Papers 22051, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22051
    Note: EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22051.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, 2014. "The Effects of the Great Recession on Teenagers’ Risky Health Behaviors and Time Use," Economic Working Papers 474, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    2. Cawley, John & Simon, Kosali I., 2005. "Health insurance coverage and the macroeconomy," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 299-315, March.
    3. Thomas S. Dee, 2001. "Alcohol abuse and economic conditions: Evidence from repeated cross‐sections of individual‐level data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(3), pages 257-270, April.
    4. French, Michael T. & Gumus, Gulcin, 2014. "Macroeconomic fluctuations and motorcycle fatalities in the U.S," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 187-193.
    5. Ann H. Stevens & Douglas L. Miller & Marianne E. Page & Mateusz Filipski, 2015. "The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: Understanding Pro-cyclical Mortality," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 279-311, November.
    6. Erdal Tekin & Chandler McClellan & Karen Jean Minyard, 2013. "Health and Health Behaviors during the Worst of Times," NBER Working Papers 19234, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. John Cawley & Asako S. Moriya & Kosali Simon, 2015. "The Impact of the Macroeconomy on Health Insurance Coverage: Evidence from the Great Recession," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 206-223, February.
    8. Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Ruhm, Christopher J., 2006. "Deaths rise in good economic times: Evidence from the OECD," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 298-316, December.
    9. Ruhm, Christopher J., 1995. "Economic conditions and alcohol problems," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 583-603, December.
    10. Christopher J. Ruhm, 2000. "Are Recessions Good for Your Health?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(2), pages 617-650.
    11. Ruhm, Christopher J. & Black, William E., 2002. "Does drinking really decrease in bad times?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 659-678, July.
    12. Chad Cotti & Richard A. Dunn & Chad Cotti, 2015. "The Great Recession and Consumer Demand for Alcohol: A Dynamic Panel-Data Analysis of US Households," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(3), pages 297-325, Summer.
    13. María E. Dávalos & Hai Fang & Michael T. French, 2012. "Easing The Pain Of An Economic Downturn: Macroeconomic Conditions And Excessive Alcohol Consumption," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(11), pages 1318-1335, November.
    14. Jeremy Arkes, 2007. "Does the economy affect teenage substance use?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 19-36, January.
    15. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald, 2004. "Money, Sex and Happiness: An Empirical Study," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(3), pages 393-415, October.
    16. Tekin, Erdal & McClellan, Chandler & Minyard, Karen Jean, 2013. "Health and Health Behaviors during the Worst of Times: Evidence from the Great Recession," IZA Discussion Papers 7538, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Shin-Jong Lin, 2009. "Economic fluctuations and health outcome: a panel analysis of Asia-Pacific countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 519-530.
    18. H. Naci Mocan & Turan G. Bali, 2010. "Asymmetric Crime Cycles," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 899-911, November.
    19. Gregory Colman & Dhaval Dave, 2018. "Unemployment and Health Behaviors over the Business Cycle: A Longitudinal View," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 93-120, July.
    20. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2015. "Recessions, healthy no more?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 17-28.
    21. Lindo, Jason M., 2015. "Aggregation and the estimated effects of economic conditions on health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 83-96.
    22. Swensen, Isaac D., 2015. "Substance-abuse treatment and mortality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 13-30.
    23. Johanna Catherine Maclean & Jonathan H. Cantor & Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, 2015. "Economic downturns and substance abuse treatment: Evidence from admissions data," DETU Working Papers 1504, Department of Economics, Temple University.
    24. Anne Case & Angua Deaton, 2015. "Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century," Working Papers 15078.full.pdf, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies..
    25. Christopher J. Ruhm, 2012. "Understanding the Relationship between Macroeconomic Conditions and Health," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hollingsworth, Alex & Ruhm, Christopher J. & Simon, Kosali, 2017. "Macroeconomic conditions and opioid abuse," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 222-233.
    2. Wang, Huixia & Wang, Chenggang & Halliday, Timothy J., 2018. "Health and health inequality during the great recession: Evidence from the PSID," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 17-30.
    3. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2015. "Recessions, healthy no more?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 17-28.
    4. Chenggang Wang & Huixia Wang & Timothy J. Halliday, 2017. "Health and Health Inequality during the Great Recession: Evidence from the PSID," Working Papers 201703, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    5. Martin Bassols, Nicolau & Vall Castelló, Judit, 2016. "Effects of the great recession on drugs consumption in Spain," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 103-116.
    6. Christopher J. Ruhm, 2016. "Health Effects of Economic Crises," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(S2), pages 6-24, November.
    7. Colombo, Emilio & Rotondi, Valentina & Stanca, Luca, 2018. "Macroeconomic conditions and health: Inspecting the transmission mechanism," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 29-37.
    8. Max Brüning & Josselin Thuilliez, 2019. "Mortality and Macroeconomic Conditions: What Can We Learn From France?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(5), pages 1747-1764, October.
    9. Tekin, Erdal & McClellan, Chandler & Minyard, Karen Jean, 2013. "Health and Health Behaviors during the Worst of Times: Evidence from the Great Recession," IZA Discussion Papers 7538, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Johanna Catherine Maclean & Jonathan H. Cantor & Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, 2015. "Economic downturns and substance abuse treatment: Evidence from admissions data," DETU Working Papers 1504, Department of Economics, Temple University.
    11. Erdal Tekin & Chandler McClellan & Karen Jean Minyard, 2013. "Health and Health Behaviors during the Worst of Times," NBER Working Papers 19234, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Avdic, Daniel & de New, Sonja C. & Kamhöfer, Daniel A., 2021. "Economic downturns and mental health in Germany," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    13. Sameem, Sediq & Sylwester, Kevin, 2017. "The business cycle and mortality: Urban versus rural counties," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 28-35.
    14. Charters, Thomas J. & Harper, Sam & Strumpf, Erin C. & Subramanian, S.V. & Arcaya, Mariana & Nandi, Arijit, 2016. "The effect of metropolitan-area mortgage delinquency on health behaviors, access to health services, and self-rated health in the United States, 2003–2010," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 74-82.
    15. Jofre-Bonet, M. & Serra-Sastre, V. & Vandoros, S., 2016. "Better Health in Times of Hardship?," Working Papers 16/09, Department of Economics, City University London.
    16. van den Berg, Gerard J. & Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & von Hinke, Stephanie & Lindeboom, Maarten & Lissdaniels, Johannes & Sundquist, Jan & Sundquist, Kristina, 2017. "Mortality and the business cycle: Evidence from individual and aggregated data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 61-70.
    17. Halliday, Timothy J., 2014. "Unemployment and mortality: Evidence from the PSID," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 15-22.
    18. Chad Cotti & David Simon, 2018. "The Impact Of Stock Market Fluctuations On The Mental And Physical Well‐Being Of Children," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 1007-1027, April.
    19. Strumpf, Erin C. & Charters, Thomas J. & Harper, Sam & Nandi, Arijit, 2017. "Did the Great Recession affect mortality rates in the metropolitan United States? Effects on mortality by age, gender and cause of death," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 11-16.
    20. Avdic, Daniel & de New, Sonja C. & Kamhöfer, Daniel A., 2020. "Economic downturns and mental wellbeing," DICE Discussion Papers 337, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22051. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.