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Am I My Brother's Barkeeper? Sibling Spillovers in Alcohol Consumption at the Minimum Legal Drinking Age

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  • Schnorr, Geoffrey
  • Lee, Eunju

Abstract

We use data on sibling pairs near the minimum legal drinking age to provide causal estimates of peer effects in alcohol consumption. Following prior work on other outcomes, we exploit the discontinuous increase in alcohol consumption of the older sibling at the legal drinking age in a regression discontinuity design. Our preferred point estimates imply that the number of binge drinking days reported by the younger sibling decreases by 27% of the mean at the cutoff. While our estimates are somewhat imprecise, we are consistently able to rule out positive estimates from the existing literature. Our research design provides estimates which are interpretable as the causal effect of the peer's alcohol consumption. This is in contrast to most prior work which instead identifies the causal effect of exposure to the peer. We explain how this distinction matters for policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Schnorr, Geoffrey & Lee, Eunju, 2021. "Am I My Brother's Barkeeper? Sibling Spillovers in Alcohol Consumption at the Minimum Legal Drinking Age," SocArXiv qntxh, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:qntxh
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/qntxh
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Adam Altmejd & Andrés Barrios-Fernández & Marin Drlje & Joshua Goodman & Michael Hurwitz & Dejan Kovac & Christine Mulhern & Christopher Neilson & Jonathan Smith, 2021. "O Brother, Where Start Thou? Sibling Spillovers on College and Major Choice in Four Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(3), pages 1831-1886.
    2. Michael Kremer & Dan Levy, 2008. "Peer Effects and Alcohol Use among College Students," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(3), pages 189-206, Summer.
    3. Jason Fletcher & Ryne Marksteiner, 2017. "Causal Spousal Health Spillover Effects and Implications for Program Evaluation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 144-166, November.
    4. Eisenberg, Daniel & Golberstein, Ezra & Whitlock, Janis L., 2014. "Peer effects on risky behaviors: New evidence from college roommate assignments," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 126-138.
    5. Rachel Dunifon & Paula Fomby & Kelly Musick, 2017. "Siblings and children's time use in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 37(49), pages 1611-1624.
    6. Greg Duncan & Johanne Boisjoly & Kathleen Mullan Harris, 2001. "Sibling, peer, neighbor, and schoolmate correlations as indicators of the importance of context for adolescent development," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(3), pages 437-447, August.
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