TY  - JOUR
AU  - Carpenter,Christopher
AU  - Dobkin,Carlos
TI  - The Effect of Alcohol Consumption on Mortality: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from the Minimum Drinking Age
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13374
PY  - 2007
Y2  - September 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13374
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13374.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Christopher Carpenter
University of California, Irvine
The Paul Merage School of Business
428 SB
Irvine, CA  92697-3125
Tel: 949/824-6112
Fax: 949/725-2883
E-Mail: kittc@uci.edu

Carlos Dobkin
Department of Economics
University of California, Santa Cruz
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Tel: 831/459-2079
Fax: 831/459-5077
E-Mail: cdobkin@ucsc.edu
AB  - This paper estimates the effect of alcohol consumption on mortality using the minimum drinking age in a regression discontinuity design. We find that granting legal access to alcohol at age 21 leads to large and immediate increases in several measures of alcohol consumption, including a 21 percent increase in the number of days on which people drink. This increase in alcohol consumption results in a discrete 9 percent increase in the mortality rate at age 21. The overall increase in deaths is due primarily to a 14 percent increase in deaths due to motor vehicle accidents, a 30 percent increase in alcohol overdoses and alcohol-related deaths, and a 15 percent increase in suicides. Combining the reduced-form estimates reveals that a 1 percent increase in the number of days a young adult drinks or drinks heavily results in a .4 percent increase in total mortality. Given that mortality due to external causes peaks at about age 21 and that young adults report very high levels of alcohol consumption, our results suggest that public policy interventions to reduce youth drinking can have substantial public health benefits.
ER  -