IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecinqu/v62y2024i4p1539-1557.html

Lockdown drinking: The sobering effect of price controls in a pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Farasat A. S. Bokhari
  • Ratula Chakraborty
  • Paul W. Dobson
  • Marcello Morciano

Abstract

Lockdown restrictions reduce the spread of COVID‐19 but disrupt livelihoods and lifestyles that can induce harmful behavior changes, including problematic lockdown drinking fueled by cheap alcohol. Exploiting differences amongst the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom, we use triple difference analysis on alcohol retail sales to examine the efficacy of minimum unit pricing as a price control device to help curb excessive consumption in a pandemic setting. We find the policy is remarkably effective and well‐targeted in reducing demand for cheap alcohol, with minimal spillover effects, and consumers overall buying and spending less.

Suggested Citation

  • Farasat A. S. Bokhari & Ratula Chakraborty & Paul W. Dobson & Marcello Morciano, 2024. "Lockdown drinking: The sobering effect of price controls in a pandemic," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(4), pages 1539-1557, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:62:y:2024:i:4:p:1539-1557
    DOI: 10.1111/ecin.13237
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.13237
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecin.13237?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. Luke B. Wilson & Robert Pryce & Colin Angus & Rosemary Hiscock & Alan Brennan & Duncan Gillespie, 2021. "The effect of alcohol tax changes on retail prices: how do on-trade alcohol retailers pass through tax changes to consumers?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(3), pages 381-392, April.
    2. Marcus, Jan & Siedler, Thomas, 2015. "Reducing binge drinking? The effect of a ban on late-night off-premise alcohol sales on alcohol-related hospital stays in Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 0, pages 55-77.
    3. Sebastien Lecocq & Jean-Marc Robin, 2015. "Estimating almost-ideal demand systems with endogenous regressors," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 15(2), pages 554-573, June.
    4. Aaron Chalfin & Shooshan Danagoulian & Monica Deza, 2021. "COVID-19 Has Strengthened the Relationship Between Alcohol Consumption and Domestic Violence," NBER Working Papers 28523, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Christopher Carpenter & Carlos Dobkin, 2017. "The Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Morbidity in the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(1), pages 95-104, March.
    6. Marco Francesconi & Jonathan James, 2022. "Alcohol Price Floors and Externalities: The Case of Fatal Road Crashes," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(4), pages 1118-1156, September.
    7. Griffith, Rachel & O’Connell, Martin & Smith, Kate, 2019. "Tax design in the alcohol market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 20-35.
    8. Irena Palamani Xhurxhi, 2020. "The early impact of Scotland's minimum unit pricing policy on alcohol prices and sales," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(12), pages 1637-1656, December.
    9. Eugenio J. Miravete & Katja Seim & Jeff Thurk, 2020. "One Markup to Rule Them All: Taxation by Liquor Pricing Regulation," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 1-41, February.
    10. Blundell, Richard & Robin, Jean Marc, 1999. "Estimation in Large and Disaggregated Demand Systems: An Estimator for Conditionally Linear Systems," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(3), pages 209-232, May-June.
    11. Christopher T. Conlon & Nirupama L. Rao, 2020. "Discrete Prices and the Incidence and Efficiency of Excise Taxes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 111-143, November.
    12. Hindriks, Jean & Serse, Valerio, 2019. "Heterogeneity in the tax pass-through to spirit retail prices: Evidence from Belgium," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 142-160.
    13. Jerry Hausman & Gregory Leonard & J. Douglas Zona, 1994. "Competitive Analysis with Differentiated Products," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 34, pages 143-157.
    14. repec:adr:anecst:y:1994:i:34:p:06 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Bokhari, Farasat A.S. & Dobson, Paul W. & Morciano, Marcello & Suhrcke, Marc, 2023. "Banning volume discounts to curb excessive consumption: A cautionary tale," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    16. Rachel Griffith & Martin O’Connell & Kate Smith, 2022. "Price Floors and Externality Correction," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(646), pages 2273-2289.
    17. Calcott, Paul, 2019. "Minimum unit prices for alcohol," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 18-26.
    18. Avdic, Daniel & von Hinke, Stephanie, 2021. "Extending alcohol retailers’ opening hours: Evidence from Sweden," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    19. Eugenio J. Miravete & Katja Seim & Jeff Thurk, 2018. "Market Power and the Laffer Curve," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(5), pages 1651-1687, September.
    20. Lorenz Kueng & Evgeny Yakovlev, 2021. "The Long-Run Effects of a Public Policy on Alcohol Tastes and Mortality," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 294-328, February.
    21. Deaton, Angus S & Muellbauer, John, 1980. "An Almost Ideal Demand System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 312-326, June.
    22. Hinnosaar, Marit, 2016. "Time inconsistency and alcohol sales restrictions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 108-131.
    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. Silvia De Nicol`o & Beatrice Biondi & Mario Mazzocchi, 2026. "Three's a crowd: Identification challenges in the triple difference model with spillover effects," Papers 2601.15764, arXiv.org.

    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. Bokhari, Farasat A.S. & Dobson, Paul W. & Morciano, Marcello & Suhrcke, Marc, 2023. "Banning volume discounts to curb excessive consumption: A cautionary tale," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    2. 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).
    3. Marco Francesconi & Jonathan James, 2022. "Alcohol Price Floors and Externalities: The Case of Fatal Road Crashes," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(4), pages 1118-1156, September.
    4. Lindström, Hanna, 2021. "The Swedish consumer market for organic and conventional milk: A demand system analysis," HFI Working Papers 21, Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut).
    5. Hinnosaar, Marit & Liu, Elaine M., 2022. "Malleability of Alcohol Consumption: Evidence from Migrants," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    6. Hanna Lindström, 2022. "The Swedish consumer market for organic and conventional milk: A demand system analysis," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 505-532, July.
    7. Lindström, Hanna, 2021. "The Swedish consumer market for organic and conventional milk: A demand system analysis," Umeå Economic Studies 998, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    8. Hinnosaar, Marit & Liu, Elaine, 2020. "Persistence in alcohol consumption: evidence from migrants," CEPR Discussion Papers 15196, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Xu, Lei, 2024. "Household Food Waste Patterns: Exploring Categorical Price and Expenditure Elasticities Using a Demand System Approach," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343717, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Pereda, Paula Carvalho & Moz-Christofoletti, Maria Alice & Duran, Ana Clara & Louzada, Maria Laura da Costa & Ng, Shu Wen, 2024. "Equity-Driven fiscal Policies: Taxing Ultra-Processed products and subsidizing minimally processed foods," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    11. 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.
    12. Asfaw, Solomon & Cattaneo, Andrea & Pallante, Giacomo & Palma, Alessandro, 2017. "Improving the efficiency targeting of Malawi's farm input subsidy programme: Big pain, small gain?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 104-118.
    13. Avdic, Daniel & von Hinke, Stephanie, 2021. "Extending alcohol retailers’ opening hours: Evidence from Sweden," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    14. Keaton Miller & Boyoung Seo, 2021. "The Effect of Cannabis Legalization on Substance Demand and Tax Revenues," National Tax Journal, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(1), pages 107-145.
    15. Thomas, Danna, 2025. "Uniform brand-variant pricing and heterogeneous firm responses to excise taxes: Evidence from six U.S. cities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    16. Olabisi, Michael & Tschirley, David L. & Nyange, David & Awokuse, Titus, 2019. "Energy demand substitution from biomass to imported kerosene: Evidence from Tanzania," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 243-252.
    17. Guthridge, Steve & Schurer, Stefanie & Taylor, Paige J., 2025. "Minimum Unit Pricing, Alcohol Consumption and Infant Health: Evidence from the Alice Springs Liquor Supply Plan," IZA Discussion Papers 18201, IZA Network @ LISER.
    18. Andrej Cupák & Peter Tóth, 2017. "Measuring the Efficiency of VAT reforms: Evidence from Slovakia," Working and Discussion Papers WP 6/2017, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    19. Rachel Griffith & Martin O’Connell & Kate Smith, 2022. "Price Floors and Externality Correction," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(646), pages 2273-2289.
    20. Peter Tóth & Andrej Cupák & Marian Rizov, 2021. "Measuring the efficiency of VAT reforms: a demand system simulation approach," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 73(3), pages 1218-1243.

    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:bla:ecinqu:v:62:y:2024:i:4:p:1539-1557. 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: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    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.