U.S. markets for outpatient substance abuse treatment (OSAT) include clinics that are private for-profit, private non-profit, and public (i.e., government-run). We study the market structure of OSAT using recently-developed methods from the empirical industrial organization literature on...

This paper describes a classroom game that illustrates the effects of asymmetric information and adverse selection in health insurance markets. The first part of this game simulates a market in which buyers can purchase insurance from sellers; in some periods, government regulation of the...

Contrary to one goal of drug law enforcement, cocaine prices decreased between the years 1986 and 2000. This paper discusses how arrest avoidance behavior can affect cocaine consumer and dealer response to law enforcement. Dealers may avoid arrest by incurring quick and easy sales; thus pure...

The danger of alcohol- and drug-impaired driving implies that policies that reduce substance abuse can save lives. Using several estimation approaches, we show that a US county’s supply of substance abuse treatment facilities is negatively and significantly related to the county’s number of...

Previous studies have shown that adolescent religious participation is negatively associated with risky health behaviors like cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and illicit drug use. One explanation for these findings is that religion directly reduces risky behaviors because churches...