TY  - JOUR
AU  - Pacula,Rosalie Liccardo
TI  - Adolescent Alcohol and Marijuana Consumption: Is There Really a Gateway Effect?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6348
PY  - 1998
Y2  - January 1998
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6348
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6348.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Rosalie Liccardo Pacula
RAND Corporation
1776 Main Street
P.O. Box 2138
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310/393-0411 ext. 6494
Fax: 858/350-8798
E-Mail: pacula@rand.org
AB  - This research analyzes the contemporaneous and intertemporal relationship between the demands for alcohol and marijuana by youths and young adults.  A general theory of multi-commodity habit formation is developed and tested using data from the 1983-1984 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.  An Adjusted Tobit specification is employed for estimating the empirical model.  Habit persistence is distinguished from unobserved heterogeneity through a reduced form instrumental variable technique.  The results show that higher beer prices significantly reduce the demand for both alcohol and marijuana, indicating a contemporaneous complementarity between these two substances even after controlling for commodity-specific habit formation.  Further, prior use of alcohol and cigarettes significantly increases the likelihood of currently using marijuana, providing evidence in support of the gateway hypothesis.
ER  -