Opiates of the Masses? Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religion

We thank audiences at the ASREC Conference, BFI Health Economics Initiative Annual Conference, BFI Women in Empirical Microeconomics Conference, Colgate University, Florida State University, Harvard University, Indiana University, IU East, SEA Conference, Stanford University, and the University of Michigan. We also thank Sarah Abraham, David Autor, Ivan Badinski, Feler Bose, Amy Finkelstein, Colin Gray, Jonathan Gruber, Simon Jaeger, Adriana Lleras-Muney, Matt Lowe, Frank Schilbach, Carolyn Stein, and Heidi Williams for their helpful comments. Funding from the National Institute on Aging through Grant Number T32-AG000186, the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship Program under Grant Number 1122374, and the Church Sexual Abuse Crisis Research Grant Competition is gratefully acknowledged. Email the authors at dhungerm@nd.edu, tg105@wellesley.edu, and oostrom.1@osu.edu. The authors declare that they have no relevant or material interests that relate to the research described in this paper. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.