NBER Full-Text Search Results for 'drinking age'

We examine whether adult alcohol consumption and traffic fatalities are associated with the legal drinking environment when a person was between the ages of 18 and 20. We find that moving from an environment in which a person was never allowed to drink legally to one in which a person could always drink legally was associated with a 20 to 30 percent increase in alcohol consumption and a ten percent increase in fatal accidents for adult males. There were no statistically significant or practically important associations between the legal drinking environment when young and adult female alcohol consumption and driving fatalities.

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.

Alcohol policies have potentially far-reaching impacts on risky sexual behavior, prenatal health behaviors, and subsequent outcomes for infants. We examine whether changes in minimum drinking age (MLDA) laws affect the likelihood of poor birth outcomes. Using data from the National Vital Statistics (NVS) for the years 1978-88, we find that a drinking age of 18 is associated with adverse outcomes among births to young mothers -- including higher incidences of low birth weight and premature birth, but not congenital malformations. The effects are largest among black women. We find suggestive evidence from both the NVS and the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY) that the MLDA laws alter the composition of births that occur. In states with lenient drinking laws, young black mothers are more likely to have used alcohol 12 months prior to the birth of their child and less likely to report paternal information on the birth certificate. We suspect that lenient drinking laws generate poor birth outcomes because they increase the number of unplanned pregnancies.

This paper presents estimates of the effects of the drinking age and beer taxes on youth motor vehicle mortality. The data set employed is a time series, from 1975 to 1981, of cross sections of the 48 contiguous states. Separate regressions for 15 to 11 year olds, 18 to 20 year olds and 21 to 24 year olds are presented. A simultaneous estimation model is used to account for the endogeneity .of the drinking age. The results show that during the sample period an increase in the drinking age to 21, which is approximately 8 percent, would have reduced mortality in the 18 to 20 year old group by approximately 14 percent. Also a 100 percent increase in the real beer tax, which is approximately $1.50 per case, would reduce highway mortality of 18 to 20 year olds by about 19 percent. This increase in the beer tax would also reduce mortality by about 8 percent for 15 to 17 year olds and by about 18 percent for the 21 to 24 year olds.

The minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) is widely believed to save lives by reducing traffic fatalities among underage drivers. Further, the Federal Uniform Drinking Age Act, which pressured all states to adopt an MLDA of 21, is regarded as having contributed enormously to this life saving effect. This paper challenges both claims. State-level panel data for the past 30 years show that any nationwide impact of the MLDA is driven by states that increased their MLDA prior to any inducement from the federal government. Even in early adopting states, the impact of the MLDA did not persist much past the year of adoption. The MLDA appears to have only a minor impact on teen drinking.

Based on a time series of state cross sections for the period from 1975 through 1981, we find that motor vehicle accident mortality rates of youths ages 15 through 17, 18 through 20, and 21 through 24 are negatively related to the real beer excise tax. We also find that the death rate of 18 through 20 year olds is inversely related to the minimum legal age for the purchase of beer. Simulations suggest that the lives of 1,022 youths between the ages of 18 and 20 would have been saved in a typical year during the sample period if the Federal excise tax rate on beer, which has been fixed in nominal terms since 1951, had been indexed to the rate of inflation since 1951. This represents a 15 percent decline in the number of lives lost in fatal crashes. The simulations also suggest that the lives of 555 youths per year would have been saved if the drinking age had been 21 in all states of the U.S. These figures indicate that, if reductions in youth motor vehicle accident deaths are desired, both a uniform drinking age of 21 and an increase in the Federal excise tax rate on beerare effective policies to accomplish this goal. They also indicate that the tax policy may be more potent than the drinking age policy.