Economic evaluation of policies for the disadvantaged
Creators: name: Sim, Yongbo
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2022

description: My dissertation studies marginalized groups’ delinquent/illegal activities and risky health behaviors as well as policies that may affect these outcomes. In the first two chapters, I address questions on the low-income groups’ risky health behavior, such as substance abuse or alcohol consumption, and the unintended consequences of such behaviors on societal issues, such as crime. The third chapter explores the behavioral responses of another socially excluded group, people recently released from prison, to a policy aimed at increasing opportunity.Chapter 1 investigates the unintended consequences of the opioid epidemic on crime using the introduction of OxyContin. Since the late 1990s, the U.S. has experienced a substantial rise in drug overdose and overdose deaths due to the increased use of opioid drugs. The scope of adverse effects that this opioid crisis has caused to society is not limited to health outcomes. It has also been linked to a wide range of social outcomes such as in the labor market and child well-being. This paper adds empirical evidence to the literature that analyzes the adverse impacts of the opioid epidemic. Because of the high social costs of crime, especially violent crime, precise understanding how the use of opioid drugs affects crime is an important policy issue.Using variation in state-level policies that made prescribing certain drugs more onerous when OxyContin entered the market in 1996, I find that states more exposed to OxyContin experienced relative increases in property and violent crimes by 12% and 25%, respectively. Furthermore, using Medicaid data, I show that states with the initial loose prescription drug policies recorded prescriptions for OxyContin/oxycodone more frequently than their counterpart states. Further, I conduct a series of sensitivity checks to investigate my findings: using alternative samples and placebo-type test. Because of pre-trend differences in crime across states, I also estimate synthetic control models. In addition, I perform the event-study analysis under different assumptions on pre-treatment trends using a cutting edge econometric technique. Together, these alternative specifications provide confidence that the interpretation of a significant divergence in crime trends occurred due to the introduction of OxyContin. Consequently, my findings demonstrate that OxyContin played a role in increasing crime rates in states without stringent policies on prescription drugs.In Chapter 2, I explore the effects of a change in benefit distribution for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) on its beneficiaries’ consumption patterns on nonfood goods. Empirical studies have shown that SNAP provides its beneficiaries with the better nutritious foods, and thus improves their health outcomes. However, this safety-net program can also be interpreted as a positive income shocks to the recipients. If SNAP creates extra income, the question facing economists is how they spend it. I investigate the change in SNAP recipients’ tobacco and alcohol consumption patterns. The beneficiaries’ health risk behavior is an important issue because it can undermine the positive effects of SNAP and increase the future medical costs associated with it. The main challenge of this study is to establish a causal link; SNAP is uniformly controlled by the federal government, leaving little geographic variation for researchers to use as an identification strategy. To overcome this issue, I utilize a staggered implementation of electronic benefit transfer (EBT) system across states. Overall, I find the null effects of the EBT system on beneficiaries’ tobacco and alcohol consumption. However, looking at heavy drinkers, I find that the probability of alcohol consumption of a SNAP-eligible individuals living in a state with the EBT system increased by 0.66 units of alcohol beverage compared to their counterparts in a state without the EBT system. The results are more pronounced among male binge drinkers. By contrast, I find little evidence that the EBT system affects the consumption patterns of alcohol of female who is eligible for SNAP and a binge drinker.In Chapter 3, I investigate the effectiveness of a policy called Ban-the-Box (BTB) on the lives of its target population, people released from prison. Specifically, I study how BTB affects the recidivism rate of ex-inmates. The U.S. has suffered mass incarceration and its corresponding costs. One possible explanation for the large volume of prison population is the high recidivism rate; more than 30% of newly released prisoners return to prison within 3 years. In an attempt to reduce the recidivism rate, jurisdictions have created policies aimed at helping people with criminal history reintegrate into their community. One such policy, BTB, removes the check box that asks about applicants’ criminal background from job applications. A rationale behind this policy is that ex-offenders could have a higher chance of being employed once they reach the late stage of the hiring process. However, whether BTB increases the employment rate of ex-inmates remains controversial; the literature has found mixed results. What is more unclear is its direct effects on recidivism rates. Using administrative prison release data from nearly ten million offenders released between 2000 and 2016, I find that there is no economically and statistically detectable effects of BTB on recidivism rates. My finding may provide supportive evidence for the extant studies showing that BTB has not helped ex-inmates.