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

酒精税、酒精价格和酒精销售：准自然实验

• 批准号: 9763399
• 负责人: Henry Saffer
• 金额: $ 23.02万
• 依托单位: NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-15 至 2021-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9763399
• 关键词: Affect; Alcohol consumption; Alcoholic Beverages; Alcoholic beverage heavy drinker; Alcohols; Beer; Behavioral; Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System; Beverages; Characteristics; Choices and Control; Consumption; Control Groups; Data; Data Set; Effectiveness; Ethanol; Event; Future; Goals; Heavy Drinking; Household; Illinois; Incentives; Income; Individual; Low income; Methods; Modeling; Natural experiment; Placebos; Policies; Price; Process; Research; Risk Factors; Sales; Series; Side; Stratification; Surveys; Taxes; Time; Transact; Travel; Washington; Wine; alcohol measurement; avoidance behavior; base; cost; demographics; discount; experimental study; interest

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.

项目概要 众所周知，增加酒精税会提高价格并减少酒精消费。然而，很少 了解此过程的具体情况。该项目将调查消费税如何征收的细节 增加影响酒精市场。这项研究的首要目标是确定酗酒者是否 与中等和低税率相比，使用替代方案可以更大程度地避免增税的影响 收入饮酒者。市场在供给侧发生变化，因为并非所有产品都需要增加 按相同金额或比例定价。需求端，买家可能会进行一系列回避 策略。这些包括购买质量较低、因此更便宜的产品、从不同的折扣购买 零售商，并购买更大的瓶子尺寸。减少购买酒精总量是另一种选择。酗酒者有一个 比适度饮酒者承担更多搜索和旅行成本的动机，因为这些成本是独立的 购买金额的大小，而福利则与消费呈正相关。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分配 比随机分配。分析方法将是一系列双重差分模型。这 Nielsen Homescan 数据将用于调查低价酒类买家的特征。它是属于 特别有兴趣调查相对于低价酒，重度饮酒者购买了多少低价酒。 收入中等的饮酒者。尼尔森零售扫描仪数据集提供详细的商店价格。零售业 价格数据将用于研究不同价格点由于增税而导致的价格变化 分配。这对于验证消费税增加时相对价格的变化非常重要。详细数据 Nielsen Homescan 数据集中还提供了按商店类型、瓶子尺寸和品牌划分的购买情况。这 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相对于高收入饮酒者的增加。 Homescan 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，重度饮酒者的消费量相对于中度饮酒者而言有所增加。这 一系列目标将详细了解谁购买低价酒精、税收对相对酒精的影响 消费税增加时的价格和重度饮酒者的价格上涨规避行为。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 表明分布低端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 发现酗酒者无法避免消费税增加的影响，那么该信息将是 对于未来消费税增加的讨论很有用。