Alcohol consumption under extreme uncertainty: cultural moderation in trilingual Switzerland

Benoit Faye, Florine Livat (), Philippe Masset, Alexandre Mondoux and Jean-Philippe Weisskopf
Additional contact information
Benoit Faye: BSE - Bordeaux sciences économiques - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Florine Livat: Kedge Business School [Talence]
Philippe Masset: EHL Hospitality Business School
Alexandre Mondoux: Haute Ecole de Viticulture et Oenologie - University of Applied Sciences of Changins
Jean-Philippe Weisskopf: EHL Hospitality Business School

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Periods of extreme uncertainty reshape household consumption, yet whether these adjustments are culturally homogeneous within a common institutional setting remains unclear. We examine alcohol consumption, a discretionary good closely linked to mood regulation and sociability, during Switzerland's Spring 2020 COVID-19 lockdown. Using survey data from 747 respondents, we test whether changes in the consumption and expenditure of wine, beer, and spirits differed across linguistic communities, and whether cultural affiliation moderates the determinants of changes in wine consumption, through a heteroscedastic ordered Probit model with culture-specific interactions and variance structures. Responses were far from uniform: differences in consumption volume were modest but substantially stronger in spending, indicating culturally distinct adjustments in quality choices. More importantly, the determinants of changes in wine consumption vary significantly across linguistic groups. Joint tests support cross-community residual-scale differences for consumption volume but not for expenditure per bottle, for which the scale evidence is mixed. Because policies, prices, and the currency are held constant, these differences are consistent with cultural affiliation moderating consumption responses to major shocks rather than with institutional or price variation, with implications for behavioural research, health policy, and industry strategy.

Keywords: Ordered Probit; Switzerland; Marascuilo procedure; Cultural heterogeneity; Alcohol consumption; Extreme uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-10-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Applied Economics, 2026, pp.1-19. ⟨10.1080/00036846.2026.2735391⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:hal:journl:hal-05779253

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2026.2735391

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().