IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v22y2013i1p89-105.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding Heterogeneity In Price Elasticities In The Demand For Alcohol For Older Individuals

Author

Listed:
  • Padmaja Ayyagari
  • Partha Deb
  • Jason Fletcher
  • William Gallo
  • Jody L. Sindelar

Abstract

This paper estimates the price elasticity of demand for alcohol using Health and Retirement Study data. To account for unobserved heterogeneity in price responsiveness, we use finite mixture models. We recover two latent groups, one is significantly responsive to price, but the other is unresponsive. The group with greater responsiveness is disadvantaged in multiple domains, including health, financial resources, education and perhaps even planning abilities. These results have policy implications. The unresponsive group drinks more heavily, suggesting that a higher tax would fail to curb the negative alcohol‐related externalities. In contrast, the more disadvantaged group is more responsive to price, thus suffering greater deadweight loss, yet this group consumes fewer drinks per day and might be less likely to impose negative externalities. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Padmaja Ayyagari & Partha Deb & Jason Fletcher & William Gallo & Jody L. Sindelar, 2013. "Understanding Heterogeneity In Price Elasticities In The Demand For Alcohol For Older Individuals," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 89-105, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:22:y:2013:i:1:p:89-105
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1817
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1817
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.1817?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Peiming & Cockburn, Iain M & Puterman, Martin L, 1998. "Analysis of Patent Data--A Mixed-Poisson-Regression-Model Approach," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(1), pages 27-41, January.
    2. Sara Markowitz, 2000. "The Price of Alcohol, Wife Abuse, and Husband Abuse," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(2), pages 279-303, July.
    3. Dave, Dhaval & Saffer, Henry, 2008. "Alcohol demand and risk preference," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 810-831, December.
    4. Jonathan Gruber & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2006. "Do Cigarette Taxes Make Smokers Happier?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Yew-Kwang Ng & Lok Sang Ho (ed.), Happiness and Public Policy, chapter 6, pages 109-146, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Morduch, Jonathan J. & Stern, Hal S., 1997. "Using mixture models to detect sex bias in health outcomes in Bangladesh," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 259-276, March.
    6. Deb, Partha & Trivedi, Pravin K, 1997. "Demand for Medical Care by the Elderly: A Finite Mixture Approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(3), pages 313-336, May-June.
    7. Machado, Jose A.F. & Silva, J. M. C. Santos, 2005. "Quantiles for Counts," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 100, pages 1226-1237, December.
    8. Donald S. Kenkel, 2005. "Are Alcohol Tax Hikes Fully Passed Through to Prices? Evidence from Alaska," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 273-277, May.
    9. F. Thomas Juster & Richard Suzman, 1995. "An Overview of the Health and Retirement Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30, pages 7-56.
    10. Brent D. Mast & Bruce L. Benson & David W. Rasmussen, 1999. "Beer Taxation and Alcohol-Related Traffic Fatalities," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(2), pages 214-249, October.
    11. Wedel, M, et al, 1993. "A Latent Class Poisson Regression Model for Heterogeneous Count Data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(4), pages 397-411, Oct.-Dec..
    12. Conway, Karen Smith & Deb, Partha, 2005. "Is prenatal care really ineffective? Or, is the 'devil' in the distribution?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 489-513, May.
    13. Heckman, James & Singer, Burton, 1984. "A Method for Minimizing the Impact of Distributional Assumptions in Econometric Models for Duration Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(2), pages 271-320, March.
    14. Grossman, Michael & Chaloupka, Frank J & Sirtalan, Ismail, 1998. "An Empirical Analysis of Alcohol Addiction: Results from the Monitoring the Future Panels," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(1), pages 39-48, January.
    15. Young, Douglas J & Bieli´nska-Kwapisz, Agnieszka, 2002. "Alcohol Taxes and Beverage Prices," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 55(1), pages 57-73, March.
    16. Young, Douglas J & Bieli´nska-Kwapisz, Agnieszka, 2002. "Alcohol Taxes and Beverage Prices," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 55(N. 1), pages 57-73, March.
    17. Markowitz, Sara & Grossman, Michael, 2000. "The effects of beer taxes on physical child abuse," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 271-282, March.
    18. Peiming Wang & Iain Cockburn & Martin L. Puterman, "undated". "A Mixed Poisson Regression Model for Analysis of Patent Data," Computing in Economics and Finance 1996 _049, Society for Computational Economics.
    19. Manning, Willard G. & Blumberg, Linda & Moulton, Lawrence H., 1995. "The demand for alcohol: The differential response to price," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 123-148, June.
    20. Kenkel, Donald S, 1996. "New Estimates of the Optimal Tax on Alcohol," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 34(2), pages 296-319, April.
    21. Robert B. Barsky & F. Thomas Juster & Miles S. Kimball & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1997. "Preference Parameters and Behavioral Heterogeneity: An Experimental Approach in the Health and Retirement Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 537-579.
    22. Sara Markowitz & Michael Grossman, 1998. "Alcohol Regulation And Domestic Violence Towards Children," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 16(3), pages 309-320, July.
    23. Pogue, Thomas F & Sgontz, Larry G, 1989. "Taxing to Control Social Costs: The Case of Alcohol," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 235-243, March.
    24. Jason M. Fletcher & Partha Deb & Jody L. Sindelar, 2009. "Tobacco Use, Taxation and Self Control in Adolescence," NBER Working Papers 15130, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paolo Li Donni & Ranjeeta Thomas, 2020. "Latent class models for multiple ordered categorical health data: testing violation of the local independence assumption," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1903-1931, October.
    2. María Á. García-Valiñas & Roberto Martínez-Espiñeira & Marta Suárez-Varela Maciá, 2021. "Price and Consumption Misperception Profiles: The Role of Information in the Residential Water Sector," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 80(4), pages 821-857, December.
    3. Nelson, Jon P., 2014. "Estimating the price elasticity of beer: Meta-analysis of data with heterogeneity, dependence, and publication bias," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 180-187.
    4. Atella, Vincenzo & Deb, Partha & Kopinska, Joanna, 2019. "Heterogeneity in long term health outcomes of migrants within Italy," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 19-33.
    5. Gregory, Christian & Deb, Partha, 2016. "Who Benefits Most from SNAP?," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 236648, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Anurag Sharma & Brian Vandenberg & Bruce Hollingsworth, 2014. "Minimum Pricing of Alcohol versus Volumetric Taxation: Which Policy Will Reduce Heavy Consumption without Adversely Affecting Light and Moderate Consumers?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-13, January.
    7. Fabrice Etilé & Anurag Sharma, 2015. "Do High Consumers of Sugar‐Sweetened Beverages Respond Differently to Price Changes? A Finite Mixture IV‐Tobit Approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(9), pages 1147-1163, September.
    8. Fabrice Etilé, 2019. "The Economics of Diet and Obesity: Public Policy," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-02154445, HAL.
    9. Durand, Robert B. & Greene, William H. & Harris, Mark N. & Khoo, Joye, 2022. "Heterogeneity in speed of adjustment using finite mixture models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    10. Santosh Kumar, 2016. "Price Elasticity of Alcohol Demand in India," Working Papers 1610, Sam Houston State University, Department of Economics and International Business.
    11. Anurag Sharma & Fabrice Etilé & Kompal Sinha, 2016. "The Effect of Introducing a Minimum Price on the Distribution of Alcohol Purchase: A Counterfactual Analysis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(9), pages 1182-1200, September.
    12. Jon Nelson, 2015. "Binge drinking and alcohol prices: a systematic review of age-related results from econometric studies, natural experiments and field studies," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-13, December.
    13. Helmut Farbmacher & Peter Ihle & Ingrid Schubert & Joachim Winter & Amelie Wuppermann, 2017. "Heterogeneous Effects of a Nonlinear Price Schedule for Outpatient Care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(10), pages 1234-1248, October.
    14. Partha Deb & Christian A. Gregory, 2016. "Who Benefits Most from SNAP? A Study of Food Security and Food Spending," NBER Working Papers 22977, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Nelson, Jon P., 2014. "Binge Drinking, Alcohol Prices, And Alcohol Taxes," Working Papers 164652, American Association of Wine Economists.
    16. Subramanian, Arjunan & Kumar, Parmod, 2017. "The impact of price policy on demand for alcohol in rural India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 176-185.
    17. Pérez, María & García-Valiñas, María A. & Martínez-Espiñeira, Roberto, 2013. "Responses to changes in domestic water tariff structures: An analysis on household-level data from Granada, Spain," Efficiency Series Papers 2013/04, University of Oviedo, Department of Economics, Oviedo Efficiency Group (OEG).
    18. Partha Deb & Carmen Vargas, 2016. "Who Benefits from Calorie Labeling? An Analysis of its Effects on Body Mass," NBER Working Papers 21992, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Vinish Shrestha, 2015. "Estimating the Price Elasticity of Demand for Different Levels of Alcohol Consumption among Young Adults," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 1(2), pages 224-254, Spring.
    20. Ziming Xuan & Thomas F. Babor & Timothy S. Naimi & Jason G. Blanchette & Frank J. Chaloupka, 2016. "Comment on “binge drinking and alcohol prices”," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 1-2, December.
    21. Nelson Jon P. & Moran John R., 2020. "Effects of Alcohol Taxation on Prices: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Pass-Through Rates," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-21, January.
    22. James Fogarty & Giri Parameswaran, 2017. "Alcohol Sin Taxes," Working Papers 257211, University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Padmaja Ayyagari & Partha Deb & Jason Fletcher & William T. Gallo & Jody L. Sindelar, 2009. "Sin Taxes: Do Heterogeneous Responses Undercut Their Value?," NBER Working Papers 15124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jason M. Fletcher & Partha Deb & Jody L. Sindelar, 2009. "Tobacco Use, Taxation and Self Control in Adolescence," NBER Working Papers 15130, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Deb, Partha & Gallo, William T. & Ayyagari, Padmaja & Fletcher, Jason M. & Sindelar, Jody L., 2011. "The effect of job loss on overweight and drinking," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 317-327, March.
    4. Partha Deb & William T. Gallo & Padmaja Ayyagari & Jason M. Fletcher & Jody L. Sindelar, 2009. "Job Loss: Eat, drink and try to be merry?," NBER Working Papers 15122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Vinish Shrestha, 2015. "Estimating the Price Elasticity of Demand for Different Levels of Alcohol Consumption among Young Adults," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 1(2), pages 224-254, Spring.
    6. Dhaval Dave & Henry Saffer, 2007. "Risk Tolerance and Alcohol Demand Among Adults and Older Adults," NBER Working Papers 13482, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Dave, Dhaval & Saffer, Henry, 2008. "Alcohol demand and risk preference," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 810-831, December.
    8. Deb, Partha & Trivedi, Pravin K., 2002. "The structure of demand for health care: latent class versus two-part models," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 601-625, July.
    9. Christopher Carpenter & Carlos Dobkin, 2010. "Alcohol Regulation and Crime," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 291-329, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Conway, Karen Smith & Deb, Partha, 2005. "Is prenatal care really ineffective? Or, is the 'devil' in the distribution?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 489-513, May.
    11. Vincenzo Atella & Francesco Brindisi & Partha Deb & Furio C. Rosati, 2004. "Determinants of access to physician services in Italy: a latent class seemingly unrelated probit approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(7), pages 657-668, July.
    12. Gehrsitz, Markus & Saffer, Henry & Grossman, Michael, 2021. "The effect of changes in alcohol tax differentials on alcohol consumption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    13. Sara Markowitz & Alison Cuellar & Ryan Conrad & Michael Grossman, 2014. "Alcohol control and foster care," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 589-612, December.
    14. Bisakha Sen, 2003. "Can Beer Taxes Affect Teen Pregnancy? Evidence Based on Teen Abortion Rates and Birth Rates," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 70(2), pages 328-343, October.
    15. Brutscher, P., 2012. "Self-Disconnection Among Pre-Payment Customers - A Behavioural Analysis," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1214, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    16. Parry, Ian W.H. & Laxminarayan, Ramanan & West, Sarah E., 2006. "Fiscal and Externality Rationales for Alcohol Taxes," RFF Working Paper Series dp-06-51, Resources for the Future.
    17. Cook, Philip J. & Moore, Michael J., 2000. "Alcohol," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 30, pages 1629-1673, Elsevier.
    18. Sijbren Cnossen, 2006. "Alcohol Taxation and Regulation in the European Union," CESifo Working Paper Series 1821, CESifo.
    19. Ruhm, Christopher J. & Jones, Alison Snow & McGeary, Kerry Anne & Kerr, William C. & Terza, Joseph V. & Greenfield, Thomas K. & Pandian, Ravi S., 2012. "What U.S. data should be used to measure the price elasticity of demand for alcohol?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 851-862.
    20. Evan Herrnstadt & Ian Parry & Juha Siikamäki, 2015. "Do alcohol taxes in Europe and the US rightly correct for externalities?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(1), pages 73-101, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:22:y:2013:i:1:p:89-105. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.