University of Iowa, Health Management and Policy, Iowa City, Iowa, USA.
Health Econ. 2013 Jan;22(1):89-105. doi: 10.1002/hec.1817. Epub 2011 Dec 12.
This paper estimates the price elasticity of demand for alcohol using Health and Retirement Study data. To account for unobserved heterogeneity in price responsiveness, we use finite mixture models. We recover two latent groups, one is significantly responsive to price, but the other is unresponsive. The group with greater responsiveness is disadvantaged in multiple domains, including health, financial resources, education and perhaps even planning abilities. These results have policy implications. The unresponsive group drinks more heavily, suggesting that a higher tax would fail to curb the negative alcohol-related externalities. In contrast, the more disadvantaged group is more responsive to price, thus suffering greater deadweight loss, yet this group consumes fewer drinks per day and might be less likely to impose negative externalities.
本文使用健康与退休研究数据估计了酒精的需求价格弹性。为了考虑到价格反应的未观测异质性，我们使用有限混合模型。我们发现了两个潜在的群体，一个对价格的反应明显，而另一个则没有反应。反应更强烈的群体在多个领域处于不利地位，包括健康、财务资源、教育，甚至可能还有规划能力。这些结果具有政策意义。无反应群体饮酒量更大，这表明提高税收并不能遏制负面的与酒精相关的外部性。相比之下，处于更不利地位的群体对价格的反应更敏感，因此遭受更大的无谓损失，但这个群体每天的饮酒量更少，可能不太会产生负面的外部性。
