From pills to property: the opioid crisis and housing choices

This study examines the impact of the opioid crisis on housing market behaviour in the United States, exploiting historical variation in state-level triplicate prescription programmes as a quasi-experimental design. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) from 1990 to 2013 and a difference-in-differences framework, we assess whether reduced opioid exposure in triplicate states affected housing tenure. We find no significant effects immediately following the introduction of OxyContin in 1996. By 2011–2013, however – coinciding with the rise of the fentanyl epidemic – triplicate states experienced a 2.6% increase in homeownership and a 4.27% decrease in rental rates compared to non-triplicate states. These tenure effects are concentrated among younger adults, and complementary machine learning analyses reveal heterogeneity driven by nonlinear relationships between unemployment and treatment effects.