Neuroeconomics and Alcohol Control Policy

描述(由申请者提供)：神经经济学模型预测，个人成瘾库存的增加将增加他们对广告等外部提示的反应，并降低他们对价格等客观信息的反应。由于大多数饮酒者都是适度饮酒者，理想情况下，酒精控制政策应该针对酗酒者。然而，与消费税的增加相比，对广告和门店密度的限制通常是次要的。一个可能的原因是，表明广告和门店密度控制有效的研究数量相对较少，而表明消费税有效的研究相对较多。这些疲弱结果的部分原因是，之前许多关于广告和门店密度影响的研究使用了可疑的方法，没有一项研究控制令人上瘾的库存。然而，一些关于价格的研究通过估计价格影响，特别是对酗酒者的影响，控制了成瘾库存。这些研究表明，与适度饮酒者相比，重度饮酒者对价格上涨的反应较小，这与神经经济学模型的预测一致。该项目将建立在酒精广告先前研究的方法学进展的基础上，并通过使用具有个人固定效应的面板数据和对成瘾库存进行控制来推进方法学。预计这项研究的结果将有助于协调与以前关于广告和网点密度的研究的差异。 公共卫生相关性：这项研究的结果将对评估旨在减少酗酒的替代公共政策的相对价值具有重要意义。这些政策包括对酒精广告、酒精销售点密度和酒精税的限制。了解这些政策中哪些更有可能减少酗酒是很重要的，因为酒类行业可能会反对任何它认为会减少销售的变化。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The neuroeconomic model predicts that an increase in an individual's addictive stock will increase their responsiveness to external cues such as advertising and decrease their responsiveness to objective information such as price. Since most alcohol consumers are moderate drinkers, alcohol control policy ideally should be targeted at alcohol abusers. However, restrictions on advertising and outlet density have been generally secondary to increases in excise taxes. A likely reason for this is the relatively limited number of studies which show that advertising and outlet density controls are effective in contrast to the relatively large number of studies which show that excise taxes are effective. Part of the reason for these weak results is that many prior studies of the effect of advertising and outlet density have used dubious methodologies and none have controlled for addictive stock. However, a number of studies of price have controlled for addictive stock by estimating price effects specifically for heavy drinkers. These studies have shown that heavy drinkers are less responsive to price increases than are moderate drinkers which are consistent with the predictions of the neuroeconomic model. This project will build on methodological advances of prior studies of alcohol advertising and advance the methodology with the use of panel data with individual fixed effects and by controlling for addictive stock. It is expected that the results from this study will help to reconcile the differences from prior studies of advertising and outlet density. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The results of this study will be important in assessing the relative value of alternative public policies designed to reduce alcohol abuse. These policies include restrictions on alcohol advertising, alcohol outlet density and alcohol taxes. It is important to understand which of these policies are more likely to reduce alcohol abuse since the alcohol industry is likely to oppose any changes which it believes will reduce sales.