Alcohol Taxes and Birth Outcomes

Ning Zhang
Additional contact information
Ning Zhang: Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, The University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, 601 Elmwood Ave, Box 644, Rochester, NY 14642, USA

IJERPH, 2010, vol. 7, issue 5, 1-12

Abstract: This study examines the relationships between alcohol taxation, drinking during pregnancy, and infant health. Merged data from the US Natality Detailed Files, as well as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (1985–2002), data regarding state taxes on beer, wine, and liquor, a state- and year-fixed-effect reduced-form regression were used. Results indicate that a one-cent ($0.01) increase in beer taxes decreased the incidence of low-birth-weight by about 1–2 percentage points. The binge drinking participation tax elasticity is ?2.5 for beer and wine taxes and ?9 for liquor taxes. These results demonstrate the potential intergenerational impact of increasing alcohol taxes.

Keywords: alcohol taxes; infant health; low birth weight; APGAR Score (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/5/1901/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/5/1901/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:7:y:2010:i:5:p:1901-1912:d:8105

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().