This proposal focuses on the effects of variations in government alcohol regulatory policies among cities and states of the United States and among countries on the incidence of violent crimes (rape, robbery, and assault); physical violence in families; and other indicators of violent behavior such as fights and trouble with the police in junior high school, high school, and college. The principal hypothesis to be tested is that the incidence of violence in micro data is negatively related to the stringency of regulation. Alcohol control variables include alcoholic beverage prices, which governments regulate via taxation; the minimum legal drinking age for the purchase and consumption of alcohol; the number and types of outlets that are permitted to sell alcohol; and statutes pertaining to alcohol advertising and to server liability. The impacts of newly available measure of illegal drug prices and state laws pertaining to the manufacture, sale, possession, and use of illegal drugs on violence also will be studied. In addition, the research design recognizes that non-violent crime may be a substitute or a complement for violent crime, and the former will be considered as an additional outcome. One international and four national micro data collections will be employed in this project: the 1989 International Crime Survey (28,006 respondents ages 16 and over in 15 countries including the U.S., 11 countries in Western Europe, Poland, Canada, and Australia); the 1991 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (32,594 respondents ages 12 and over with oversampling of teenagers and young adults, blacks, and Hispanics); the 1982, 1989, and 1992 Monitoring the Future Surveys of Secondary School Students (approximately 17,000 high school seniors in each survey and the same numbers of eighth and tenth graders in the 1992 survey); the 1989, 1990, and 1991 Core Alcohol and Drug Surveys of College Students (over 50,000 college students in each survey); and the 1976 and 1985 National Family Violence Surveys (2,143 respondents in the 1976 survey and 6,002 in the 1985 survey with oversampling of Blacks and Hispanics in the 1985 survey). These data collections will facilitate evaluations of the effects of the alcohol and illegal drug regulatory measures on violent actions committed by and to males and females; children, teenagers, and adults; and whites and minorities.
| Chaloupka, Frank J; Grossman, Michael; Saffer, Henry (2002) The effects of price on alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems. Alcohol Res Health 26:22-34 |
| Markowitz, S; Grossman, M (2000) The effects of beer taxes on physical child abuse. J Health Econ 19:271-82 |
