The relationship of opioid prescriptions and the educational performance of children.

One of the more salient aspects of the opioid crisis in America has been the disparate impact it has had on communities. This paper considers the possibility that opioid abuse might have negative spillovers onto student performance in schools within the communities most affected. We use administrative data on individual children's test scores (grades 3 through 8) in South Carolina from the 2005-06 to 2016-17 academic years. These data are then linked to county-level changes in opioid prescriptions rates. Findings show that an increase in the opioid prescription rate in a county is associated with a statistically significant reduction in white student test scores, but no such decline was found among non-white students. This relationship is robust to controls for changing county-level economic conditions, time-varying controls for student-level poverty, county characteristics, and county time trends. Among white students, the association is strongest among rural students in households that are not receiving SNAP or TANF benefits. Given the importance of educational attainment, this reduction in test scores associated with high rates of opioid prescriptions may indicate that there will be long-lasting spillover effects of the opioid crisis.

Hunger pains? SNAP timing and emergency room visits.

This project uses quasi-random assignment of SNAP receipt dates linked to Medicaid healthcare records to examine whether ER use is affected by the timing of benefits. We find an increase in ER usage at the end of the benefit month, but only among older recipients. The estimated effect is much larger when the end of the benefit cycle coincides with the end of the calendar month, which is when other transfer payments are also depleted. This suggests that within this older group, increased food insecurity leads to increased ER utilization. Further, we find that the share of ER visitors that received SNAP benefits on the day of their ER visit is 3.1% lower than in the SNAP population. This is consistent with benefit receipt altering household behaviors and routines (notably, we observe, by increasing shopping), which may crowd out healthcare utilization. This particular effect is present across all age groups, although the magnitude is smallest for children.

The impact of casinos on fatal alcohol-related traffic accidents in the United States.

Casinos have been introduced throughout the U.S. to spur economic development and generate tax revenues. Yet, casinos may also be associated with a variety of social ills. One issue that has not been empirically tested in the literature is whether there is a link between casino expansion and alcohol-related fatal traffic accidents. We suspect a link may exist since casinos often serve alcohol to their patrons and, by their dispersed nature, could impact driving distances after drinking. Using the variation in the timing and location of casino openings over a 10-year period, we isolate the impact of casino introduction on alcohol-related fatal accidents. Results indicate that there is a strong link between the presence of a casino in a county and the number of alcohol-related fatal traffic accidents. However, this relationship is negatively related to the local-area (county) population. Results prove durable, as we subject them to robustness checks.