We investigate behavioral responses to a staggered disruption in the supply of prescription opioids across U.S. states: the introduction of electronic Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs). Using administrative datasets, we find PDMPs curtail the proliferation of prescription opioids....

What drives the spread of non-infectious diseases? We study this question in the context of the opioid epidemic. Having many friendship links to counties with high exposure to the opioid epidemic positively correlates with overdose death rates. This correlation is not driven by physical...

I document that the opioid epidemic causes mortgage defaults to rise in the United States, exploiting a plausibly exogenous adverse shock to the supply of prescription opioids (through abuse-deterrent reformulation of OxyContin). I present evidence that depressed local house prices, resulting...

Using recent data on the unvaccinated across U.S. states, this paper focuses on the determinants of vaccine hesitancy related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that more prosperous states and states with more elderly and physicians have lower vaccine hesitancy. There was some evidence of...

This paper investigates the spillover effects of the opioid epidemic on consumer finance: consumer delinquency; bank consumer portfolio risk; and consumer credit supply, using credit-bureau, credit-card-mail-solicitation, and regulatory bank data. For identification, we employ instruments...

This study investigates the role of retail pharmacy ownership in the opioid epidemic in the United States by comparing independently owned pharmacies' and chain pharmacies' prescription opioid dispensing practices. Using data of prescription opioid orders at the pharmacy level between 2006 and...

States tightly regulate access to alcohol and other substances. During the pandemic and related state of emergency, state and federal governments adopted a variety of regulations affecting this access. State shelter-in-place orders included decisions about whether liquor stores and marijuana...

Three months into the COVID-19 outbreak caused by a novel strain of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the world is still in search of an effective therapeutic drug. Experimental drugs developed for other infections, such as Gilead's remdesivir, have been repurposed with unclear success. A recent small...

This study investigates the role of retail pharmacy ownership in the opioid epidemic in the United States by comparing independently owned pharmacies' and chain pharmacies' prescription opioid dispensing practices. Using data of prescription opioid orders at the pharmacy level between 2006 and...