Does Drug Use Cause Poverty?

Robert Kaestner

NBER Working Paper No. 6406
Issued in February 1998
NBER Program(s):   HE

In this study, I examine the effect of drug use on poverty. The main objective of the paper is to provide descriptive empirical information about the relationship between drug use and poverty, and to explore, in a preliminary fashion, the question of whether drug use causes poverty. Toward this end, I present the results of both descriptive and multivariate analyses of the relationship between drug use and poverty for two national samples of young adults. One sample is drawn from the National Household Survey of Drug Abuse (NHSDA), and the other from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). The results of the analysis indicate that for both samples, drug use is associated with greater poverty.

(1379 K)

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Published:

• The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse. Chaloupka, Frank J., Michael Grossman, Warren K. Bickel, and Henry Saffer, eds., Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999, pp. 327-355. ,
• Does Drug Use Cause Poverty?, Robert Kaestner, in The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse: An Integration of Econometrics and Behavioral Economic Research (1999), University of Chicago Press
  

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