Estimating the Impact of Alcohol Consumption on Mortality and Life Expectancy in Russian Regions

Влияние потребления алкоголя на смертность и ожидаемую продолжительность жизни в регионах России

Tatiana Kossova (), Elena Kossova () and Sheluntsova, Maria A. (Шелунцова, Мария) ()
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Sheluntsova, Maria A. (Шелунцова, Мария): National Research University Higher School of Economic
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Maria Aleksandrovna Sheluntcova ()

Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, 2017, vol. 1, 58-83

Abstract: In this paper, we estimate the relationship between alcohol consumption and average life expectancy at birth as well as mortality from external causes in Russian regions. Statistics was collected from the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia for the period from 2008 to 2013. Alcohol sales in liters per capita serve as a proxy measure for alcohol consumption in a particular region. We convert different types of consumed alcoholic beverages to grams of absolute alcohol according to the percentage content of alcohol in a corresponding drink. The method of instrumental variables is applied for panel models with fixed effects. We investigate the relationship between life expectancy at birth for men and women as well as mortality from external causes and macroeconomic factors including average per capita income, unemployment rate, Gini coefficient and volume of alcohol consumption. Estimation results show strong positive relationship between lcohol consumption and mortality from external causes. The relationship between alcohol consumption and life expectancy is negative. These conclusions hold for both men and women. The increase in the total volume of alcohol consumption has a negative impact on public health, and to the greatest extent it relates to the male population. This leads to the formation of significant gender gap in life expectancy at birth in Russian regions. Findings are useful for the government policy aimed to prevent the population from alcohol abuse and to increase average life expectancy at birth.

Keywords: alcohol consumption; inter-regional differences; life expectancy; mortality from external causes; Russian regions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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