Research

Publications:

"Main Street Business Initiatives and Crime in Small Towns." 2023.  Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 209: 91-112.- with Josiah Johnson (student). 

We exploit a television show contest among small towns for a $500,000 revitalization award to study the impact of  place-based economic policies and business initiatives on crime. We use a difference-in-differences approach and synthetic control techniques and find significant declines in property crimes for two of the three winning towns examined. We provide weak evidence of first stage effects of economic improvements in the winning communities and estimate a savings from fewer crimes of $80-100 thousand annually following the investment. Media: UA Little Rock News: (1), (2)

"Medical Cannabis and Automobile Accidents: Evidence from Auto Insurance ." 2022. Health Economics, 31(9): 1878-1897. - with Cameron M. Ellis, Martin F. Grace, and Juan Zhang

We find that premiums declined, on average, by $22 per year following medical cannabis legalization. We estimate that existing legalization has reduced health expenditures related to auto accidents by almost $820 million per year with the potential for a further $350 million reduction if legalized nationally. 

Media:  Marijuana Moment, IFLScience, NewsBreak,  Boulder Weekly,  Axios,  Policygenius,  Radio Iowa

"The Effect of Medical Cannabis Laws on Pharmaceutical Marketing to Physicians." 2021. Health Economics, 30(10): 2409-2436. - with Thomas Lebesmuehlbacher

This paper examines the strategic response in direct-to-physician marketing by pharmaceutical firms as cannabis enters the market. Using office detailing records from 2014-2018 aggregated to the county level, we find weak evidence of a relatively small and delayed response in substitute prescription drug- and opioid-related detailing. While these effects are more pronounced among smaller pharmaceutical firms, the magnitudes are economically small and likely muted at aggregate levels by the small percent of doctors that actively recommend cannabis for medical treatment. Media: Research in the Rock (pg. 38), 

"Marijuana Decriminalization, Medical Marijuana Laws, and Fatal Traffic Crashes in U.S. Cities, 2010-2017." 2020. American Journal of Public Health, 110(3): 363-369. - with Amanda C. Cook and Gregory Leung. 

Unlike medical legalization, which is associated with fewer traffic fatalities, marijuana decriminalization increases fatal traffic crashes involving young male drivers. Medical marijuana legalization laws stipulate consumption occurs at home, whereas decriminalization only lessens the penalty for marijuana possession. Thus, the incentives and corresponding consequences of such laws have heterogeneous effects on traffic safety.

"The Effects of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries  on Adverse Opioid Outcomes". 2020. Economic Inquiry, 58(2): 569-588.  

As more states enact laws liberalizing marijuana use and the U.S. opioid epidemic surges to unprecedented levels, understanding the relationship between marijuana and opioids is growing increasingly important. Using a unique self-constructed marijuana dispensary dataset, I estimate the impact of increased marijuana access on opioid-related harms. I exploit within- and across-state variation in dispensary openings and find county-level prescription opioid-related fatalities decline by 11% following the opening a dispensary. The estimated dispensary effects are qualitatively similar for opioid-related admissions to treatment facilities. These results are strongest for males and suggest a substitutability between marijuana and opioids.  Media:  NORML, Drug Policy Alliance

Other Media: Talk Business & Politics, NPR (Ozarks at Large), 

Working Papers:

1.  The Heterogeneous Effects of Medical and Recreational Cannabis Laws on Prescription Drug Claims (under review) - with Amanda Cook and Tice Sirmans

In this paper, we use prescription drug claims as reported by small and large group insurers in the NAIC Supplemental Health Care Exhibit to examine the impact of medical and recreational cannabis laws on prescription drug expenditures of working-age individuals. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find significant reductions in prescription drug expenditures claims in the small group insurance market following recreational cannabis legalization. The decline in claims corresponds with statistically significant reductions in premiums indicating positive spillover effects from recreational cannabis for insured members of small group insurance plans.

2.  The Impact of Medical Cannabis Laws on Private Health Insurer Financial Metrics (under review) - with Amanda Cook, Joshua Frederick, and Tice Sirmans

We examine the effect of medical cannabis laws on individual market health insurer claims, premiums, and profitability. We find an initial 10% increase in annual per-member claims and weak evidence of corresponding reductions in profitability for both the medical loss ratio and underwriting profit.  Thus, any impact of medical cannabis market is temporary and does not significantly disrupt the individual health insurance  market.

3.  The  Heterogeneous Effects of Cannabis Dispensaries on Crime: The Importance of Foot Traffic (under review) - with Thomas Lebesmuehlbacher and Justin Roush

We pair exact dispensary location with city block-level crimes to examine the effect of medical cannabis dispensaries on crime throughout the state of Florida. We incorporate foot-traffic data from anonymized smartphones use a geo-spatial difference-in-differences approach to find that dispensaries with high customer volume deter street-level crimes such as larceny, burglary from vehicles, and motor vehicle theft. We do not find evidence of similar reductions near low volume dispensaries. Because security measures will be similar across high- and low-volume dispensaries, the non-monotonic effects suggest that foot traffic and additional bystanders play a crucial role in crime deterrence near dispensaries.

4. The Effect of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries on Opioid and Heroin Overdose Mortality - with Julio Garín and R. Vincent Pohl

Opioid overdose is the most common cause of accidental death in the United States and no policy response has been able to contain this epidemic to date. We examine whether local access to medical cannabis can reduce opioid-related mortality. Using a unique data set of medical cannabis dispensaries combined with county-level mortality data, we estimate the effect of dispensaries operating in a county on the number of overdose deaths. We find that counties with dispensaries experience 6% to 8% fewer opioid-related deaths among non-Hispanic white men. Mortality involving heroin declines by approximately 10% following the opening of a dispensary.  Media:  Boston Globe, Civilized, Fox (Little Rock), KTHV (CBS), CATO Institute

5. No Smoking Gun: The Brady Act, Medical Cannabis, and Violent Gun Crime - with Cameron M. Ellis and J. Bradley Karl

Under the federal regulations of the Brady Act, individuals using medical cannabis are prohibited from legally purchasing firearms. However, 36 states permit medical cannabis use, compelling individuals to choose between legally possessing cannabis or guns, but not both. This backdoor ban allows us to utilize the differential timing of cannabis legalization to identify the impact of gun purchase restrictions on gun crime. Using difference-in-differences and triple difference-in-difference models on FBI Uniform Crime Reports data, we find medical cannabis reduces assaults and robberies with firearms by 5%, relative to knife crimes. We find no impact on knife crimes alone, suggesting substitution away from crime instead of towards other weapons. Further analysis shows the effect is concentrated near cannabis dispensaries, supporting our mechanism. 

Works in Progress: