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

项目摘要 众所周知，增加酒精税会提高价格，减少酒精消费。不过小 我们都知道这个过程的细节。这个项目将调查消费税如何 影响酒类市场。这项研究的首要目标是确定重度饮酒者 使用替代选择，以避免在更大程度上增加税收的影响，而不是适度和低- 收入饮酒者市场在供给方面发生变化，因为并不是所有的产品都要求增加 按相同的数量或比例计算。在需求方面，买家可能会进行一系列的回避， 战略布局这些措施包括购买质量较低，从而更便宜的产品，从不同的折扣购买 零售商，并购买更大的瓶子尺寸。少喝点酒是另一种选择。酗酒者有一个 与适度饮酒者相比，有动机承担更大的搜索和旅行成本，因为这些成本是独立的 福利与消费呈正相关。两大外源性国家税收 将研究变化。这些变化发生在伊利诺斯州和华盛顿州。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分配给治疗， 随机分配。分析方法将是一系列差异中的差异模型。的 Nielsen Homescan数据将用于调查低价酒精购买者的特征。具有 特别感兴趣的是调查有多少低价酒精是由大量饮酒者购买的，相对于低价酒精， 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 价格数据将被用来研究价格的变化，由于税收增加在不同的价格点 分布这对于验证当消费税增加时相对价格的变化是很重要的。详细数据 Nielsen Homescan数据集中还提供了按商店类型、瓶子大小和品牌分类的购买情况。的 Homescan数据将用于调查替代品，以避免税后价格上涨 重度饮酒者与中度饮酒者以及低收入饮酒者与高收入饮酒者之间的差异。 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，大量饮酒者的消费量相对于适度饮酒者有所增加。这 一套目标将创建一个详细的视图，谁购买低价酒精，税收对相对酒精的影响， 消费税增加时酗酒者的价格上涨回避行为。如果这个项目 表明酗酒者依靠替代品来尽量减少消费税增加的影响，这将 这表明，价格增长在低端的分布是更重要的比增加的平均 价格这种避税行为可以通过最低定价政策加以限制。另外，如果这个项目 发现消费税增加的影响并没有被酗酒者避免，那么这个信息将是 在未来讨论消费税增加时有用。

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.