Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/260834 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 9704
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
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. Physicians respond to monitoring on the extensive margin, limiting the number of patients to whom they prescribe opioids without adjusting dosage or duration. This decreases supply to long-term opioid users, who evade the restrictions by acquiring prescriptions from out-of-state prescribers and by substituting to heroin. This causes a surge in heroin overdoses, which offsets reductions in hospitalizations and deaths from prescription opioids.
Subjects: 
prescription drugs
opioid crisis
heroin
prescription drug monitoring programs
JEL: 
H75
I11
I12
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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