Although-the focus of public concern with youthful drinking has been on its contribution to traffic accidents, there are also longer term effects that may have high social costs. Because alcohol is addictive, a person who drinks heavily as a teenager may establish a habit that is difficult to shed in later years. And because youthful drinking may lead to failure in school and distort the normal process of social maturation, the legacy of youthful alcohol abuse may be inferior career options. We propose to explore these long term effects of youthful drinking by use of an extraordinarily rich longitudinal data set. The major components of this research program are as follows: 1. Estimate a demand function for alcohol consumption by youths age 17 to 25 using NLSY data on the three youngest cohorts for the years 1982-85 and 1988. 2. Analyze the effects of heavy drinking on entry to and completion of college. 3. Estimate the effect of youthful drinking on earnings for respondents age 23-25 in 1988.
