The proposed research will provide a comprehensive picture of the role of alcohol consumption and abuse in economic and socioeconomic choices and outcomes. This will be accomplish by carefully modeling the economic and demographic relationships and then by analyzing the model using several large data sets. This will improve on past research by asking somewhat different questions and by couching the research in a well articulated microeconomic life- cycle model and also by use of improved data sets. The findings will enable policy makers to design policies to mitigate and/or prevent the private and social costs associated with alcohol. The study analyzes the relationship between [1] alcohol abuse, alcohol consumption, and alcoholism and [2] economic behavior and socioeconomic and demographic factors. It allows for causes and effects to go in both directions. For example, alcoholism or alcohol abuse may have important implications for individuals' labor market performance and household demographic structure (measured by earnings, absenteeism, marital stability, etc.) and some of these same factors may be determinants of the use of alcohol. The study will analyze issues such as: how alcohol abuse and alcoholism affect earnings, productivity, and household structure; how prices, taxes, household resources, and other factors affect alcohol consumption; and how these relationships differ across important subpopulations. A major focus will be on differences by gender, age, race, and geographical location. Three data sets will be used to investigate these issues: 1) the multiple site Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) data, 2) longitudinal data for the New Haven site of Establishment of Populations for Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (EPESE) and 3) the 1988 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and its supplements on Alcohol and also on Work History. There are many advantages of using several data sources, a particularly important one is that we can make comparisons using different measures of alcohol: alcohol consumption (EPESE and NHIS), medically diagnosed alcoholism (ECA), and self-reported alcoholism and abuse (NHIS). These data will be merged with auxiliary data where appropriate.
| Mullahy, J; Sindelar, J (1996) Employment, unemployment, and problem drinking. J Health Econ 15:409-34 |
| Mullahy, J; Sindelar, J L (1994) Alcoholism and income: the role of indirect effects. Milbank Q 72:359-75 |
