Search

From a policy perspective, it is crucial to understand how changes in beer taxes affect retail beer prices. This study provides new evidence of the pass-through rate of state beer taxes to prices in a post-merger era. Our estimates that use state-level beer tax changes suggest that a 10-cent increase in beer taxes raises retail prices by about 17 cents. Comparable findings from the 1991 federal beer tax increase show a rise in retail beer prices of 19-22 cents. Our findings suggest that consumers fully bear the burden of increased beer taxes. (JEL H2, I0, D4), I. INTRODUCTION Alcohol excise taxes are a common form of taxation used by the federal government and state governments alike, serving the dual purpose of raising revenue and protecting the [...]

Health insurance is widely regarded as essential for financing the production of good health, hut is insurance always benficial for our health? Ex ante moral hazard may induce individuals with [...]

This paper provides an analysis of the link between suicidal behaviors and human capital formation of young adults in the United States. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we estimate the effects of suicide thoughts and attempts on the probability of engaging in work or attending school. The richness of the data set allows us to implement several strategies to control for unobserved heterogeneity and the potential reverse causality. These strategies include using a large set of control variables that are likely to be correlated with both suicidal behavior and the outcome measures, an instrumental variables method, and fixed effects analyses from the subsamples of twin and sibling pairs. Results from the different identification strategies consistently indicate that both suicide thoughts and suicide attempts decrease the likelihood that a young adult individual engages in work or schooling. JEL Classification: I1, J2, J3, 1. Introduction Suicides among youths have reached an alarming rate in recent years and are now the third leading cause of death for those aged 15-24 years (Anderson and Smith [...]

The objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of the length of maternity leave on maternal health in a sample of working mothers. Two measures of depression and a measure of outpatient health visits are used to represent maternal health. Ordinary least squares models provide baseline estimates, and instrumental variables models account for the potential endogeneity of the return-to-work decision. The findings suggest that returning to work later is associated with a reduction in the number or frequency of depressive symptoms. There is suggestive but inconclusive evidence that longer maternity leave is associated with a lower probability of being a likely case of clinical depression and a lower likelihood of having frequent outpatient visits during the first six months after childbirth. These findings contribute to the literature on maternal leave policy, which focuses primarily on the benefits of leave for child health and development, by evaluating the influence of longer maternal leave on the health of mothers. JEL Classification: I0, 1. Introduction In the United States, 51% of mothers of infants currently work outside the home (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2003). Among mothers who return to work during the first [...]

The examination of individual-level data on sexual behavior and aggregate data on sexually transmitted disease, which signal risky sexual behavior amongst the youth, finds that alcohol use does not have a causal relationship with risky sexual behavior. It is also concluded that alcohol use lowers contraception use by teens.

Mental illnesses are debilitating diseases affecting millions of people each year. These conditions constitute five of the top ten leading causes of disability worldwide. Depression alone is responsible for more [...]

Byline: Michael Grossman (1), Robert Kaestner (2), Sara Markowitz (3) Keywords: sexual behavior; substance use Abstract: Numerous studies have documented a strong correlation between substance use and teen sexual behavior, and this empirical relationship has given rise to a widespread belief that substance use causes teens to engage in risky sex. This causal link is often used by advocates to justify policies targeted at reducing substance use. Here, we argue that previous research has not produced sufficient evidence to substantiate a causal relationship between substance use and teen sexual behavior. Accordingly, we attempt to estimate causal effects using two complementary research approaches. Our findings suggest that substance use is not causally related to teen sexual behavior, although we cannot definitively rule out that possibility. Author Affiliation: (1) City University of New York Graduate Center and National Bureau of Economic Research, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, USA (2) University of Illinois at Chicago and National Bureau of Economic Research, Institute for Government and Public Affairs, 815 West Van Buren Street, Suite 525, Chicago, IL, 60607, USA (3) Rutgers University at Newark and National Bureau of Economic Research, Department of Economics, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA Article History: Registration Date: 29/09/2004 Article note: Research for this paper was supported by grant number 5 R01 DA12692 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to the National Bureau of Economic Research. We are indebted to Inas Rashad and Nasreen Khan for research assistance. We wish to thank Donald Kenkel, Jody Sindelar, David Salkever, David Bishai, Eric Slade, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. Our research is based in part on the Add Health project, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry (PI) and Peter Bearman, and funded by grant PO1-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with cooperative funding participation by the National Cancer Institute the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders the National Institute on Drug Abuse the National Institute of General Medical Sciences the National Institute of Mental Health the National Institute of Nursing Research the Office of AIDS Research, NIH The Office of Behavior and Social Science Research, NIH the Office of the Director, NIH the Office of Research on Women's Health, NIH the Office of Population Affairs, DHHS the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DHHS the Office of Minority Health, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, DHHS the Office of Minority Health, Office of Public Health and Science, DHHS the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, DHHS and the National Science Foundation. Persons interested in obtaining data files from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health should contact Add Health Project, Carolina Population Center, 123 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-3997 (email: addhealth@unc.edu). This paper has not undergone the review accorded to official NBER publications in particular, it has not been submitted for approval by the Board of Directors. Any opinions expressed are those of the authors and not those of NIDA or NBER. JEL Classification: I10, I11

The influence of body weight, body image, and cigarette prices in determining adolescent smoking initiation is examined. Adolescents who desire to lose weight may initiate smoking as a method for appetite control, which undermines the goals of tobacco control policies that seek to prevent smoking initiation.

Sara Markowitz (*) Since the early 1980s, a number of economists have examined the impact of the price of alcoholic beverages on alcohol consumption. Recently their research has turned to [...]

The impact of mothers' drug and alcohol use on their children's mental health and behavior is analyzed. Additional information on the mother-child fixed effects models analyzing the connection between mothers' drug and alcohol use and children's behavior problems is included.

In recent years, economists have paid much attention to the demand for alcohol and the negative externalities associated with excessive drinking. Largely ignored in the literature is the link between alcohol use and domestic violence. Given the established positive relationship between alcohol consumption and acts of violence, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role that changes in the determinants of the demand for alcohol may play in reducing the incidence of violence aimed at children. Data on violence come from the 1976 Physical Violence in American Families survey. We estimate a model in which violent outcomes are affected by the state excise tax rate on beer, illegal drug prices, and other regulatory variables such as availability measures and laws restricting the advertising of alcohol. Results show that increasing the tax on beer can be an effective policy tool in reducing violence. Laws designed to make obtaining beer more difficult also may be effective in reducing violence, while restrictions on advertising and increases in illegal drug prices have no effects., I. INTRODUCTION Alcohol use and abuse is an important research topic because of the significant costs alcohol abuse imposes on individual users, their families, and society as a whole. Individual [...]

Sara Markowitz [*] Alcohol consumption has been frequently linked to violence. This paper examines the direct relationship between the price of alcohol, which determines consumption, and violence toward husbands and [...]

An increase in beer taxes may result in a drop in violence carried out by women against children, but has little impact on levels of male violence.