IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-02867917.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Heavy Drinking Always Profitable For Alcohol Industry? An Epidemic Framework For Alcohol Consumption
[Le binge drinking est-il toujours profitable à l’industrie alcoolière ? Un modèle épidémique de la consommation d’alcool]

Author

Listed:
  • Miléna Spach

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Antoine Pietri

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

This article aims to provide a better understanding of the impact of heavy drinkers on the alcohol industry s profitability. At first glance, heavy drinking appears to improve alcohol s sales leading to an increase of profit. However, heavy drinking also involves fatal injuries and constitutes a shortfall for the industry. In this paper, we explore coexistence of these two forces through an epidemic model of alcohol use distinguishing light and heavy drinkers (LH model). We find that there exists a level of alcohol consumption beyond which heavy drinkers represent a loss of profit for the alcohol industry. We calibrate our model with U.S. data for 2011 and we estimate that this threshold should be between 10.22 and 10.80 drinks per heavy drinking occasion. The implication of our result is twofold: the alcohol industry should set up more effective actions against the heaviest consumers, and consequently genuine collaborations with public authorities could exist for this fringe of population.

Suggested Citation

  • Miléna Spach & Antoine Pietri, 2018. "Is Heavy Drinking Always Profitable For Alcohol Industry? An Epidemic Framework For Alcohol Consumption [Le binge drinking est-il toujours profitable à l’industrie alcoolière ? Un modèle épidémique," Post-Print hal-02867917, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02867917
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02867917
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-02867917/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Massin, Sophie, 2012. "Is harm reduction profitable? An analytical framework for corporate social responsibility based on an epidemic model of addictive consumption," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(12), pages 1856-1863.
    2. Esser, M.B. & Bao, J. & Jernigan, D.H. & Hyder, A.A., 2016. "Evaluation of the evidence base for the alcohol industry's actions to reduce drink driving globally," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 106(4), pages 707-713.
    3. Pantani, Daniela & Sparks, Robert & M. Sanchez, Zila & Pinsky, Ilana, 2012. "‘Responsible drinking’ programs and the alcohol industry in Brazil: Killing two birds with one stone?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1387-1391.
    4. Li, G. & Smith, G.S. & Baker, S.P., 1994. "Drinking behavior in relation to cause of death among US adults," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 84(9), pages 1402-1406.
    5. Samuel Cameron, 2002. "The Economics of Sin," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2582.
    6. Anuj Mubayi & Priscilla E. Greenwood, 2013. "Contextual Interventions for Controlling Alcohol Drinking," Mathematical Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 27-53, March.
    7. Caulkins, Jonathan P. & Feichtinger, Gustav & Tragler, Gernot & Wallner, Dagmar, 2010. "When in a drug epidemic should the policy objective switch from use reduction to harm reduction?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 201(1), pages 308-318, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Miléna Spach & Antoine Pietri, 2018. "Is Heavy Drinking Always Profitable For Alcohol Industry? An Epidemic Framework For Alcohol Consumption [Le binge drinking est-il toujours profitable à l’industrie alcoolière ? Un modèle épidémique," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-02867917, HAL.
    2. Massin, Sophie, 2012. "Is harm reduction profitable? An analytical framework for corporate social responsibility based on an epidemic model of addictive consumption," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(12), pages 1856-1863.
    3. Joe Cox, 2011. "The Economics of the Video-gaming Leisure Market," Chapters, in: Samuel Cameron (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Leisure, chapter 19, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Georges Brousse & Patrick Bendimerad & Ingrid De Chazeron & Pierre Michel Llorca & Pascal Perney & Maurice Dematteis, 2014. "Alcoholism Risk Reduction in France: A Modernised Approach Related to Alcohol Misuse Disorders," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-12, November.
    5. Cho, Seo-Young & Dreher, Axel & Neumayer, Eric, 2013. "Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 67-82.
    6. Samuel Cameron, 2002. "The Economics Of Partner Out Trading in Sexual Markets," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 195-222, October.
    7. Della Giusta, Marina & Di Tommaso, Maria Laura & Jewell, Sarah & Bettio, Francesca, 2019. "Quashing Demand Criminalizing Clients? Evidence from the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 12405, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Edd Noell, 2014. "What Has Jerusalem to Do with Chicago (or Cambridge)? Why Economics Needs an Infusion of Religious Formulations," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 11(2), pages 202-209, May.
    9. Marina Giusta & Maria Tommaso & Steinar Strøm, 2009. "Who is watching? The market for prostitution services," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(2), pages 501-516, April.
    10. Della Giusta, Marina & Di Tommaso, Maria Laura & Bettio, Francesca & Jewell, Sarah, 2018. "Criminalising clients: some evidence from the UK," MPRA Paper 91480, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Peter G. Moffatt & Simon A. Peters, 2004. "Pricing Personal Services: An Empirical Study of Earnings in the UK Prostitution Industry," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 51(5), pages 675-690, November.
    12. Rocío Albert & Fernando Gómez & Yanna Gutierrez Franco, 2007. "Regulating Prostitution: A Comparative Law and Economics Approach," Working Papers 2007-30, FEDEA.
    13. Samuel Cameron, 2019. "Cultural economics, books and reading," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 43(4), pages 517-526, December.
    14. Liyun Wu & Jorge Delva, 2012. "The Effect of Computer Usage in Internet Café on Cigarette Smoking and Alcohol Use among Chinese Adolescents and Youth: A Longitudinal Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-15, February.
    15. Francesca Bettio & Marina Della Giusta & Maria Laura Di Tommaso & Sarah Jewell, 2016. "Stigmatising Prostitution: Some Evidence from the UK," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2016-13, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    16. Clemens Hetschko, 2010. "Samuel Cameron: The economics of hate," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 99(2), pages 189-191, March.
    17. Sophie Massin, 2011. "La notion d'addiction en économie : La théorie du choix rationnel à l'épreuve," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 121(5), pages 713-750.
    18. Sonnabend, Hendrik & Stadtmann, Georg, 2018. "Good intentions and unintended evil? Adverse effects of criminalizing clients in paid sex markets with voluntary and involuntary prostitution," Discussion Papers 400, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.
    19. Samuel Cameron, 2008. "E-Baying for blood?: noncompetitive flexible pricing in entertainment ticketing-some demand side evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(10), pages 1315-1322.
    20. Wei Wang & Sifen Lu & Haoxiang Tang & Biao Wang & Caiping Sun & Pai Zheng & Yi Bai & Zuhong Lu & Yulin Kang, 2022. "A Scoping Review of Drug Epidemic Models," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-18, February.

    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:hal:journl:hal-02867917. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.