Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP10412
Authors: Marco Francesconi; Jonathan James
Abstract: We estimate the effect of binge drinking on accident and emergency attendances, road accidents, arrests, and the number of police officers on duty using a variety of unique data from Britain and a two-sample minimum distance estimation procedure. Our estimates, which reveal sizeable effects of bingeing on all outcomes, are then used to monetize the short-term externalities of binge drinking. We find that these externalities are on average £4.9 billion per year ($7 billion), about £80 for each man, woman, and child living in the UK. The price that internalizes this externality is equivalent to an additional 9p per alcoholic unit, implying a 20% increase with respect to the current average price.
Keywords: Alcohol; Arrests; Externalities; Health; Road Accidents
JEL Codes: I12; I18; K42
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| binge drinking (I12) | average number of daily injury-related accident and emergency (AE) admissions (I12) |
| binge drinking (I12) | daily mean of fatal road accidents (R48) |
| binge drinking (I12) | average number of arrests for all alcohol-related incidents (H76) |
| binge drinking (I12) | number of police officers on duty (J45) |