Steven Davis speaks with Carolina Arteaga and Victoria Barone about the US opioid epidemic. They discuss Purdue Pharma’s marketing strategy, its influence on physicians, and policy factors as drivers of the epidemic. Next, they consider economic consequences, the odd character of how the media covered the epidemic, the (slow) response of most politicians to a mounting tragedy, and how – over time – the opioid epidemic and its fallout drove a major political realignment in the United States.
Recorded on June 24, 2025.
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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Carolina Arteaga is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on health outcomes, political economy, education, and crime. She grew up in Colombia and earned her PhD in Economics at UCLA.
Victoria Barone is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame. Her research interests lie in public, labor, and health economics. She grew up in Argentina and also earned her PhD in Economics at UCLA.
Steven Davis is the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the Hoover Institution, and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). He is a research associate of the NBER, IZA research fellow, elected fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, and consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He co-founded the Economic Policy Uncertainty project, the U.S. Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, the Global Survey of Working Arrangements, the Survey of Business Uncertainty, and the Stock Market Jumps project. He also co-organizes the Asian Monetary Policy Forum, held annually in Singapore. Before joining Hoover, Davis was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, serving as both distinguished service professor and deputy dean of the faculty.
RELATED SOURCES
- “Republican Support and Economic Hardship: The Enduring Effects of the Opioid Epidemic,” Caroline Arteaga and Victoria Barone, NBER Working Paper 33904, June 2025.
- “Did the Opioid Epidemc Fuel Donald Trump’s Return to the White House?” Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker, 26 November 2024.
- “Places Ravaged by Opioids Are Giving Republicans the Upper Hand,” The Economist, 4 January 2025.
- The Opioid Crisis and Recent Federal Policy Responses, Congressional Budget Office, September 2022.
- “What Drives Media Slant? Evidence from U.S. Daily Newspapers,” Econometrica, 2010.
- Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culure in Crisis by J.D. Vance, 2016.
FOLLOW GUEST SPEAKERS
- Carolina Arteaga’s Personal Website
- Victoria Barone’s Personal Website
