Effects of the Minimum Drinking Age on Mortality, Nonfatal Injury, and Crime

描述（由申请人提供）：大量的研究已经证实，过量饮酒与许多不利的健康和社会后果之间存在很强的关联，但关于这种关联的因果关系的证据较少。该项目将利用个人在21岁（美国最低法定饮酒年龄）时接触酒精的概率离散增加这一事实，来估计酒精消费对被捕、住院和死亡概率的影响。这一制度特征允许使用回归不连续设计（RDD）来获得酒精消费对不良后果发生率影响的无偏估计。RDD方法利用了这样一种情况，即对感兴趣的治疗在某个预定阈值上不连续地变化（例如，21岁时酒精供应的不连续变化）。在这种情况下，对阈值两侧的个体进行比较将产生对治疗对结果的真实影响的无偏估计，因为除了感兴趣的治疗之外，所有其他变量都将平滑地跨越不连续。本研究将使用关于酒精消费、逮捕、住院和死亡的调查和保密行政数据实施一系列RDD分析，以确定最低饮酒年龄法对酒精消费及其不良后果的减少形式因果影响。第一步将记录21岁时饮酒频率和强度的变化。下一步将是确定哪种类型的伤害、死亡原因和犯罪类型导致不良事件的突然增加，以及这种情况如何因种族和民族而异。结合简化形式估计将给出减少酒精消费回报的隐含工具变量估计。本研究项目的总体目标是提供减少酒精消费的回报的估计，政策制定者在考虑旨在减少酒精消费不利影响的政策时可以使用。可信的研究设计，以及该研究侧重于年轻人饮酒的广泛不利影响的事实，意味着它非常适合实现这一重要目标。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A large body of research has established that there is a strong association between excessive alcohol consumption and numerous adverse health and social outcomes, but there is less evidence as to what proportion of this correlation is causal. This project will estimate the effect of alcohol consumption on the probability of arrest, hospitalization, and death by exploiting the fact that an individual's access to alcohol increases discretely at age 21 the minimum legal drinking age in the US. This institutional feature allows the use of a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to obtain unbiased estimates of the effect of alcohol consumption on the rate of adverse outcomes. The RDD approach takes advantage of a situation in which the treatment of interest varies discontinuously across some predetermined threshold (e.g. a discontinuous change in alcohol availability upon turning age 21). In this case, comparisons of individuals just on either side of the threshold will yield an unbiased estimate of the true effect of the treatment on outcomes since -- apart from the treatment of interest -- all other variables will trend smoothly across the discontinuity. This research will implement a series of RDD analyses using both survey and confidential administrative data on alcohol consumption, arrests, hospitalizations and deaths to identify the reduced form causal effects of minimum drinking age laws on alcohol consumption and its adverse outcomes. The first step will be documenting how both the frequency and intensity of alcohol consumption change at age 21. The next step will be to determine which types of injuries, causes of death, and types of crimes are causing any abrupt increases in adverse events and how this varies by race and ethnicity. Combining the reduced form estimates will give the implied Instrumental Variables estimate of the return to reducing alcohol consumption. The overall goal of this research project is to provide estimates of the returns to reducing alcohol consumption that policymakers can use when they are considering policies intended to reduce the adverse effects of alcohol consumption. The credible research design and the fact that the study focuses on a broad array of the adverse effects of alcohol consumption among youth mean it is well suited to accomplishing this important goal. Relevance This research project will evaluate the degree to which the minimum legal drinking age in the United States reduces alcohol consumption, mortality, injury, and crime among young adults. Since underage drinking rates in the US remain at startlingly high levels, our results will have important implications for the design of public health policies that would limit the availability of alcohol to youths. In so doing, this project will have the potential to reduce alcohol related harms experienced by youths.