Health Crisis and Housing Market Effects - Evidence from the U.S. Opioid Epidemic

We present a view of housing market effects relating health crises to house prices. Using data on opioid prescriptions and repeat sales in Ohio, we find that house price changes around opioid dispensaries (pharmacies and practitioners) are negatively associated with the quantity of opioids dispensed and the magnitude of the effect dissipates with distance from opioid dispensing locations. The results are consistent across different measures of opioids dispensed. We present a series of robustness checks and show that the treatment effect is more pronounced around pharmacies that have a vertically integrated supply chain, and in areas that have a higher proportion of blue-collar jobs, which are associated with a higher propensity for opioid pain prescriptions. Our work informs the broader policy discussion on economic costs resulting from health crises