An Empirical Analysis of Alcohol Addiction: Results from the Monitoring the Future Panels

Michael Grossman, Frank Chaloupka and Ismail Sirtalan

Economic Inquiry, 1998, vol. 36, issue 1, 39-48

Abstract: In a panel of young adults, the authors find that alcohol consumption is addictive in the sense that increases in past or future consumption cause current consumption to rise. The positive and significant future consumption effect is consistent with the hypothesis of rational addiction. The long-run price elasticity is approximately 60 percent larger than the short-run price elasticity and twice as large as the elasticity that ignores addiction. Thus, a tax hike policy to curtail consumption or abuse may not have a favorable cost-benefit ratio unless it is based on the long-run price elasticity. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1998
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Working Paper: An Empirical Analysis of Alcohol Addiction: Results from the Monitoring the Future Panels (1995)
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