NCJ Number
235877
Date Published
1993
Length
241 pages
Annotation
This publication contains papers that discuss current knowledge on alcohol-related problems from an economic perspective; they were presented at a Workshop on Economic and Socioeconomic Issues in the Prevention of Alcohol-Related Problems, which was sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 1991.
Abstract
The first chapter discusses the price elasticity of alcoholic beverages. This is one of the oldest themes in the literature on the economics of prevention, and it has provided a foundation for much of the other economic work in the field. The chapter closes with an assessment of recent progress in modeling the demand for alcoholic beverages and a discussion of the additional progress that can be made by applying more sophisticated econometric techniques. The second chapter extends the discussion of pricing to the taxation of alcoholic beverages. This chapter considers issues involved in setting alcohol taxes at appropriate levels. The third chapter reviews the theoretical and empirical bases of knowledge about alcohol availability and its effects on alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems. The fourth chapter focuses on recent developments in economic models of addictive behavior. The theoretical framework used is an extension of consumer demand theory. Economic studies of alcohol advertising are addressed in the fifth chapter. The chapter considers five econometric issues that are particularly important in studies of the effects of advertising on the consumption of alcoholic beverages. The sixth chapter surveys the literature on the relationship between drinking and labor market outcomes. This is followed by a chapter that reviews the literature on minimum-age laws for purchasing alcoholic beverages. The final chapter introduces some of the data and measurement problems that economists will encounter in using survey data on alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems. Approximately 100 references