Alcohol Taxes, Alcohol Prices and Alcohol Sales: Quasi-Natural Experiments

项目摘要 众所周知，增加酒类税会提高价格，减少酒类消费。然而，几乎没有 都知道这一过程的细节。这个项目将调查如何征收消费税的细节 酒类价格上涨会影响酒类市场。这项研究的首要目标是确定酗酒者 使用替代选项，以更大程度地避免增税的影响，而不是适度和低税率- 有收入的饮酒者。市场在供应方面发生变化，因为并不是所有的产品都需要增加 同样的数量或比例的价格。在需求方面，买家可能会采取一系列规避措施 战略。这些措施包括购买质量较差的产品，因此购买更便宜的产品，从不同的折扣购买 零售商，以及购买更大尺寸的瓶子。少买全酒是另一种选择。酗酒者有一种 激励产生比适度饮酒者更大的搜索和旅行成本，因为这些成本是独立的 而福利与消费呈正相关。两大外生性州税 我们将对这些变化进行研究。这些变化发生在伊利诺伊州和华盛顿州。这些变化是 被认为是准自然实验，因为它们依赖于使用其他标准进行治疗的分配 而不是随机分配。分析方法将是一系列差异模型。这个 尼尔森Homescan的数据将被用来调查低价酒类买家的特征。它是 特别感兴趣的是调查大量饮酒者购买的低价酒相对于低价酒的购买量 收入适中的饮酒者。尼尔森零售扫描仪数据集提供了详细的商店价格。零售业 价格数据将被用来研究在不同的价格点由于增税而引起的价格变化 分发。这对于验证相对价格在消费税增加时发生变化很重要。详细数据 根据商店类型、瓶子大小和品牌的购买情况，也可以在尼尔森家庭扫描数据集中找到。这个 Homescan数据将用于调查替代产品，以避免税后发生的价格上涨 重度饮酒者比中度饮酒者以及低收入饮酒者相对于高收入饮酒者增加。 家庭扫描和行为风险因素监测系统数据也将用于调查变化 由于消费税的增加，大量饮酒者相对于适度饮酒者的消费。这 一套目标将创建关于谁购买低价酒精的详细视图，税收对相对酒精的影响 价格与大量饮酒者在消费税增加时的涨价规避行为。如果这个项目 显示大量饮酒者依赖替代品来将消费税增加的影响降至最低，这将 认为低端分配的价格上涨比平均价格的上涨更重要 价格。这种类型的避税可能会受到最低定价政策的限制。或者，如果这个项目 发现大量饮酒者无法避免消费税增加的影响，那么以下信息将是 在未来关于消费税增加的讨论中很有用。

Project Summary Alcohol tax increases are known to increase prices and reduce alcohol consumption. However, little is known about the specifics of this process. This project will investigate the details of how an excise tax increase affects the alcohol market. The overarching goal of this research is to determine if heavy drinkers use substitution options to avoid the effects of a tax increase to a greater degree than moderate and low- income drinkers. The market changes on the supply side because not all products are required to increase prices by the same amount or proportion. On the demand side, buyers may engage in a series of avoidance strategies. These include buying lower quality and thus cheaper products, buying from different discount retailers, and buying larger bottle sizes. Buying less total alcohol is another option. Heavy drinkers have an incentive to incur greater search and travel cost than moderate drinkers because these costs are independent of the amount purchased, while benefits are positively related to consumption. Two large exogenous state tax changes will be studied. These changes were in Illinois and in Washington State. These changes are considered quasi-natural experiments because they rely on assignment to treatment using a criterion other than random assignment. The analytic approach will be a series of difference-in-differences models. The Nielsen Homescan data will be used to investigate the characteristics of buyers of low priced alcohol. It is of particular interest to investigate how much low priced alcohol is bought by heavy drinkers relative to low- income moderate drinkers. The Nielsen Retail Scanner data set provides detailed store prices. The retail price data will be used to study the change in prices due to the tax increase at different points in the price distribution. This is important to verify that relative prices change when excise taxes increase. Detailed data on purchases by store type, bottle size and brand are also available in the Nielsen Homescan data set. The Homescan data will be used to investigate substitutions to avoid the price increase that occurs after the tax increase by heavy versus moderate drinkers and by low-income drinkers relative to higher-income drinkers. The Homescan and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data will also be used to investigate changes in consumption by heavy drinkers relative to moderate drinkers as a result of the excise tax increases. This set of goals will create a detailed view of who buys low priced alcohol, the impact of the tax on relative alcohol prices and the price increase avoidance behavior of heavy drinkers when excise taxes increase. If this project shows that heavy drinkers rely on substitutions to minimize the impact of an excise tax increase, it would suggest that price increases at the low end of the distribution are more important than increases in the average price. This type of tax avoidance could be limited with minimum pricing policies. Alternatively, if this project finds that the impact of excise tax increases is not avoided by heavy drinkers then this information would be useful in future discussions of excise tax increases.