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Health policy and genetic endowments: Understanding sources of response to Minimum Legal Drinking Age laws

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  • Jason M. Fletcher
  • Qiongshi Lu

Abstract

This paper uses policy‐induced variation in legal access to alcohol in the United States to explore interactions between genetic predispositions and health behaviors. It is well known that Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) laws have discrete impacts on binge drinking behaviors, but less is known about heterogeneity of the effects and the characteristics of individuals most and least affected. Using the Add Health data, this paper explores differential policy effects based on polygenic scores (PGS), which are genome‐wide summary measures predicting health outcomes. Specifically, we leverage PGS for alcoholism and for a broader set of risk‐taking behaviors to explore heterogeneities in response to the policy and consider mechanisms for the responses. Like previous literature using the Add Health and other datasets, we find main effects of MLDA in increasing recent binge drinking episodes by approximately 5 percentage points. We find MLDA effects are concentrated entirely in individuals with high PGS for alcohol use. We are also able to compare these results with measures of parental alcoholism as a global proxy for family history.

Suggested Citation

  • Jason M. Fletcher & Qiongshi Lu, 2021. "Health policy and genetic endowments: Understanding sources of response to Minimum Legal Drinking Age laws," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 194-203, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:30:y:2021:i:1:p:194-203
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.4183
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Daniel Barth & Nicholas W. Papageorge & Kevin Thom, 2020. "Genetic Endowments and Wealth Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(4), pages 1474-1522.
    2. Jason M Fletcher, 2012. "Why Have Tobacco Control Policies Stalled? Using Genetic Moderation to Examine Policy Impacts," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-6, December.
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    8. Jason M. Fletcher, 2019. "Estimating Causal Effects Of Alcohol Access And Use On A Broad Set Of Risky Behaviors: Regression Discontinuity Evidence," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(3), pages 427-448, July.
    9. 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.
    10. Richard Karlsson Linnér & Pietro Biroli & Edward Kong & S. Fleur W. Meddens & Robee Wedow & Mark Alan Fontana & Maël Lebreton & Abdel Abdellaoui & Anke R. Hammerschlag & Michel G. Nivard & Aysu Okba, 2018. "Genome-wide association analyses of risk tolerance and risky behaviors in over one million individuals identify hundreds of loci and shared genetic influences," Working Papers 2018-087, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 4th January 2021
      by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog on 2021-01-04 12:00:05

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    1. Rita Dias Pereira & Pietro Biroli & Titus Galama & Stephanie von Hinke & Hans van Kippersluis & Cornelius A. Rietveld & Kevin Thom, 2022. "Gene-Environment Interplay in the Social Sciences," Papers 2203.02198, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    2. Cawley, John & Han, Euna & Kim, Jiyoon & Norton, Edward C., 2023. "Genetic nurture in educational attainment," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).

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