Click on a term to reduce result list
The result list below will be reduced to the selected search terms. The terms are generated from the titles, abstracts and STW thesaurus of publications by the respective author.
425 records from EconBiz based on author Name
1. Marijuana Legalization and Opioid Deaths
abstractOver the last two decades there has been considerable movement at the state-level to legalize marijuana, initially for medical purposes and more recently for recreational consumption. Despite prior research, it is unclear how, if at all, these policies are related to rates of opioid-involved overdose deaths, which have trended rapidly upwards over time and represent a major public health problem. We provide two types of new information on this question. First, we replicate and extend upon previous investigations and show that the empirical results of those studies are frequently fragile and that, in most cases, the inclusion of more comprehensive controls, longer analysis periods and more correctly defined dependent variables results in less favorable estimates, often including predicted increases in opioid deaths. Second, we present new estimates from generalized differences-in-differences and event study models that incorporate more recent data and improvements developed in our replication and extension of early research. These results indicate that legal medical marijuana, particularly when available through retail dispensaries, is associated with higher opioid mortality. The results for recreational marijuana, while less reliable, also suggest that retail sales through dispensaries are associated with greater death rates relative to the counterfactual of no legal cannabis
Mathur, Neil K.; Ruhm, Christopher J.;2022
Type: Arbeitspapier; Working Paper; Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature;
Availability: Link Link
Citations: 5 (based on OpenCitations)
2. The Opioid Crisis, Health, Healthcare, and Crime : A Review of Economic Studies
abstractOpioid use is one of the most substantial and long-lasting public health crises faced by the United States. This crisis, which began by the mid-1990s and continues through the time of writing, causes 136 fatal opioid overdoses each day and costs the U.S. at least $596 billion each year. These numbers, while incredibly large, likely do not capture the full toll of the crisis on American society. In this study, we review quasi-experimental studies that examine the relationship between opioids and health and healthcare, and crime outcomes in the U.S. We focus on the U.S., a country particularly hard hit by the crisis which has adopted a broad array of policies aimed at curbing it
Maclean, Johanna Catherine; Mallatt, Justine; Ruhm, Christopher J.; Simon, Kosali Ilayperuma;2022
Type: Arbeitspapier; Working Paper; Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature;
Availability: Link Link
Citations: 1 (based on OpenCitations)
3. "Despair" and Death in the United States
abstractIncreases in "deaths of despair" have been hypothesized to provide an important source of the adverse mortality experiences of some groups at the beginning of the 21st century. This study examines this possibility and uncovers the following primary findings. First, mental health deteriorated between 1993 and 2019 for all population subgroups examined. Second, these declines raised death rates and contributed to the adverse mortality trends experienced by prime-age non-Hispanic Whites and, to a lesser extent, Blacks from 1999-2019. However, worsening mental health is not the predominant explanation for them. Third, to extent these relationships support the general idea of "deaths of despair", the specific causes comprising it should be both broader and different than previously recognized: still including drug mortality and possibly alcohol deaths but replacing suicides with fatalities from heart disease, lower respiratory causes, homicides, and conceivably cancer. Fourth, heterogeneity in the consequences of a given increase of poor mental health are generally more important than the sizes of the changes in poor mental health in explaining Black-White differences in the overall effects of mental health on mortality
Ruhm, Christopher J.;2024
Type: Arbeitspapier; Working Paper; Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature;
Availability: Link Link
4. Support for Paid Family Leave among Small Employers Increases during the COVID-19 Pandemic
abstractThe United States is one of the few countries that does not guarantee paid family leave (PFL) to workers. Proposals for PFL legislation are often met with opposition from employer organizations, who fear disruptions to business, especially among small employers. But there has been limited data on employers' views. We surveyed firms with 10-99 employees in New York and New Jersey on their attitudes towards PFL programs before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found high support for state PFL programs in 2019 that rose substantially over the course of the pandemic: by the fall of 2020, almost 70% of firms were supportive. Increases in support were larger among firms that had an employee use PFL, suggesting that experience with PFL led to employers becoming more supportive. Thus, concerns about negative impacts on small employers should not impede efforts to expand PFL at the state or federal levels
Bartel, Ann; Rossin-Slater, Maya; Ruhm, Christopher J.; Slopen, Meredith; Waldfogel, Jane;2021
Type: Arbeitspapier; Working Paper; Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature;
Availability: Link Link
Citations: 1 (based on OpenCitations)
5. Excess Deaths in the United States During the First Year of COVID-19
abstractAccurately determining the number of excess deaths caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is hard. The most important challenge is accurately estimating the counterfactual count of baseline deaths that would have occurred in its absence. This analysis used new methods to: estimate this baseline metric; calculate excess deaths during the first year of the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic; and examine plausibility of the excess death estimates obtained in this and prior analyses. Total, group-specific and cause-specific excess deaths in the U.S. from March 2020 through February 2021 were calculated using publicly available data covering all deaths from March 2009 through December 2019 and provisional data from January 2020 through February 2021. The estimates indicate that there were 646,514 (95% CI: 597,514 to 695,520) excess deaths in the U.S. during this period, with 83.4% (95% CI: 77.5% - 90.2%) of these attributed directly to COVID-19. There were substantial differences across population groups and causes in the ratio of actual-to-baseline deaths, and in the contribution of COVID-19 to excess mortality. Prior research has frequently underestimated baseline deaths and so has overstated excess mortality and the percentage of it attributed to non-COVID-19 causes
Ruhm, Christopher J.;2021
Type: Arbeitspapier; Working Paper; Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature;
Availability: Link Link
Citations: 9 (based on OpenCitations)
6. The impact of paid family leave on employers: evidence from New York
abstractWe designed and fielded a survey of New York and Pennsylvania firms to study the impacts of New York's 2018 Paid Family Leave policy on employer outcomes. We match each NY firm to a comparable PA firm and use difference-in-difference models to analyze within-match-pair changes in outcomes. We find that PFL leads to an improvement in employers' rating of their ease of handling long employee absences, concentrated in the first policy year and among firms with 50-99 employees. We also find an increase in employee leave-taking in the second policy year, driven by smaller firms.
Bartel, Ann; Rossin-Slater, Maya; Ruhm, Christopher J.; Slopen, Meredith; Waldfogel, Jane;2021
Type: Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature; Arbeitspapier; Working Paper;
Availability:
Link 7. The Impact of Paid Family Leave on Employers : Evidence from New York
abstractWe designed and fielded a survey of New York and Pennsylvania firms to study the impacts of New York's 2018 Paid Family Leave policy on employer outcomes. We match each NY firm to a comparable PA firm and use difference-in-difference models to analyze within-match-pair changes in outcomes. We find that PFL leads to an improvement in employers' rating of their ease of handling long employee absences, concentrated in the first policy year and among firms with 50-99 employees. We also find an increase in employee leave-taking in the second policy year, driven by smaller firms
Bartel, Ann; Rossin-Slater, Maya; Ruhm, Christopher J.; Slopen, Meredith; Waldfogel, Jane;2021
Type: Arbeitspapier; Working Paper; Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature;
Availability: Link Link
Citations: 6 (based on OpenCitations)
8. California's paid family leave law and the employment of 45-64 year old adults
abstractPaid family leave allows workers to take time off from work to care for a family member with a serious health condition, with reduced financial risk and increased job continuity. In 2004, California was the first state in the nation to implement a paid family leave program allowing workers to take up to eight weeks off work with partial pay to care for their own or a family member's serious health condition. While the effects of California's law on the labor supply of parents of newborns have been extensively studied, the role of paid family leave in the labor supply of workers who may need to provide care for a spouse has not been studied widely. We examine the effects of California's law on the employment of workers who are aged 45-64 and have a disabled spouse, using the 2001-2008 American Community Survey. Our preferred estimates suggest the paid leave program increased the employment of 45-64 year old women with a disabled spouse in California by around 0.9 percentage points (or 1.4% on a pre-law base rate of 65.9%) in the post-law period compared to their counterparts in other states, with a 2.9 percentage point rise in private sector employment. The employment of men with a disabled spouse in California also increased, but by a smaller amount: 0.7 percentage points (or 0.8% on a pre-law base 86.8%) (with a non-significant 0.4 percentage point decrease in private sector employment).
Bartel, Ann; Kim, Soohyun; Ruhm, Christopher J.; Waldfogel, Jane;2021
Type: Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature; Arbeitspapier; Working Paper;
Availability:
Link Link 9. Support for paid family leave among small employers increases during the COVID-19 pandemic
Bartel, Ann; Rossin-Slater, Maya; Ruhm, Christopher J.; Slopen, Meredith; Waldfogel, Jane;2021
Type: Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature; Arbeitspapier; Working Paper;
Availability: Link Link
10. Living and Dying in America : An Essay on Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
abstractThis essay reviews Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (DEATHS), by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, a fascinating account of life and death in the United States during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. While primarily targeted towards a popular audience, the volume will be of interest to many economists and other social scientists. It postulates how public and private policies currently practiced in the United States, combined with and partly causing the declining economic and social circumstances of less educated, have led to increased mortality from drugs, suicide, and chronic liver disease. After describing the material in DEATHS in considerable detail, I suggest a variety of research questions that need to be answered to confirm or refute Case and Deaton's arguments and describe challenges to their key hypotheses. Among the latter are the ability of the postulated relationships to explain the sharply differing mortality trajectories of non-Hispanic whites, compared with other groups, and the timing of the observed mortality changes. Along the way, I raise doubts about the usefulness of the "deaths of despair" conceptualization, with its strong implications about causality
Ruhm, Christopher J.;2021
Type: Arbeitspapier; Working Paper; Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature;
Availability: Link Link