We study the decentralization of liquor policies in the Post-Prohibition Era, which is the most famous natural experiment ever conducted with respect to policy decentralization in the U.S. Our empirical analysis exploits a unique feature of this policy change, namely that we observe votes of...

Among the many unresolved questions regarding the determinants of violence is the role of prohibitions against drugs and alcohol. Conventional wisdom holds that consumption of these goods encourages violence and that prohibitions discourage such consumption; thus, prohibitions reduce violence....

Marginal prices fell, and disposable incomes increased, for drug and alcohol consumers during the pandemic. Most of the amount, timing, and composition of the 240,000 deaths involving alcohol and drugs since early 2020 can be explained by income effects and category-specific price changes. For...

The alcohol industry argues that alcohol excise taxes do not reduce heavy drinking because of substitutions to lower-cost products and that these taxes disproportionately burden low-income drinkers. Alternatively, some economists have argued that increases in alcohol excise taxes reduce heavy...

A large body of evidence documents a link between alcohol consumption and violence involving intimate partners and close family members. Recent scholarship suggests that since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders, there has been a marked increase in domestic...

Recent studies analyzing the effects of religion on various economic, social, health and political outcomes have been largely associational. Although some attempts have been made to establish causation using instrument variable (IV) or difference-in-difference (DID) methods, the instruments and...

This paper examines how estimates of the price elasticity of demand for beer vary with the choice of alcohol price series examined. Our most important finding is that the commonly used ACCRA price data are unlikely to reliably indicate alcohol demand elasticities--estimates obtained from this...

How malleable is alcohol consumption? Specifically, how much is alcohol consumption driven by the current environment versus individual characteristics? To answer this question, we analyze changes in alcohol purchases when consumers move from one state to another in the United States. We find...