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You Drink, You Drive, You Die? The Dynamics of Youth Risk Taking in Response to a Change in the Legal Drinking Age

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Listed:
  • Boes, Stefan

    (University of Lucerne)

  • Stillman, Steven

    (Free University of Bozen/Bolzano)

Abstract

This paper exploits the reduction in the legal drinking age in New Zealand from 20 to 18 to study the dynamics of youth risk taking. Using administrative data on the universe of road accidents over a fifteen year period spanning the law change, we undertake three complimentary analyses to examine the dynamics of alcohol-related and total vehicular accidents among youth. First, using an event history approach, we find no evidence that changing the drinking age from 20 to 18 led to more vehicular accidents or alcohol-related accidents among teens. This is true both in the short-run following the law change and when examining cumulative accidents for the affected cohorts. Next, using an age-based regression discontinuity design (RDD), we find that accidents do increase after one's 18th birthday, but this appears to be a short-run phenomenon. Finally, estimating flexible parametric regression models suggests that reducing the drinking age led to a decline in risky driving by youth who were already 15 at the time of the change but had no longer-run impacts. Overall, our results support the argument that the legal drinking age can be lowered without increasing detrimental outcomes for youth and call into question previous studies that have made policy recommendations by extrapolating from results identified using age-based RDDs.

Suggested Citation

  • Boes, Stefan & Stillman, Steven, 2017. "You Drink, You Drive, You Die? The Dynamics of Youth Risk Taking in Response to a Change in the Legal Drinking Age," IZA Discussion Papers 10543, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10543
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Conover, Emily & Scrimgeour, Dean, 2013. "Health consequences of easier access to alcohol: New Zealand evidence," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 570-585.
    2. Kypri, K. & Voas, R.B. & Langley, J.D. & Stephenson, S.C.R. & Begg, D.J. & Tippetts, A.S. & Davie, G.S., 2006. "Minimum purchasing age for alcohol and traffic crash injuries among 15- to 19-year-olds in New Zealand," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(1), pages 126-131.
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    4. Boes, Stefan & Stillman, Steven, 2013. "Does Changing the Legal Drinking Age Influence Youth Behaviour?," IZA Discussion Papers 7522, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Guido Imbens & Karthik Kalyanaraman, 2012. "Optimal Bandwidth Choice for the Regression Discontinuity Estimator," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 933-959.
    6. Kypri, K. & Voas, R.B. & Langley, J.D. & Stephenson, S.C.R. & Begg, D.J. & Tippetts, A.S. & Davie, G.S., 2006. "Erratum: Minimum purchasing age for alcohol and traffic crash injuries among 15- to 19-year-olds in New Zealand (American Jourmal of Public Health (2006) 96 (126-131) doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2005.073122," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(5), pages 767-767.
    7. Crost, Benjamin & Guerrero, Santiago, 2012. "The effect of alcohol availability on marijuana use: Evidence from the minimum legal drinking age," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 112-121.
    8. Huckle, T. & Parker, K., 2014. "Long-term impact on alcohol-involved crashes of lowering the minimum purchase age in New Zealand," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1087-1091.
    9. Christopher Carpenter & Carlos Dobkin, 2011. "The Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Public Health," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(2), pages 133-156, Spring.
    10. Joshua D. Angrist & Miikka Rokkanen, 2015. "Wanna Get Away? Regression Discontinuity Estimation of Exam School Effects Away From the Cutoff," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 110(512), pages 1331-1344, December.
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    Cited by:

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    3. Kabir Dasgupta & Christopher Erwin & Alexander Plum, 2020. "The Devil is in the Details: Identifying the Unbiased Link between Access to Alcohol and Criminal Behavior," Working Papers 2020-12, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    4. Kabir Dasgupta & Alexander Plum & Christopher Erwin, 2022. "The Devil is in the Details: Identifying Unbiased Link between Alcohol Purchasing Rights and Youth Delinquency," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(6), pages 1380-1431, December.
    5. Matthias Bäuml & Jan Marcus & Thomas Siedler, 2023. "Health effects of a ban on late‐night alcohol sales," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(1), pages 65-89, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    drinking age; vehicular accidents; regression discontinuity design; dynamics; New Zealand;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities

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