Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile.
Business School, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile.
PLoS One. 2018 Oct 22;13(10):e0205932. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205932. eCollection 2018.
Chile is among the countries with the highest alcohol consumption per capita in Latin America, but little has been done in the way of public policy and policy research to overcome this problem. The objective of the present study is to estimate demand elasticities (own-price, cross-price, expenditure and quality) for three groups of alcoholic beverages in Chile: spirits, wines, and beers.
The study uses data from the VII Encuesta de Presupuestos Familiares (Family Budget Survey) 2011-2012 conducted by the National Institute of Statistics. Because of problems with the quality of the measurement units, hot-deck imputation method was used with the alcohol purchases that presented problems. To estimate the demand elasticities, the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) method proposed by Deaton was used. Quality decisions were estimated for each beverage separately using an equation proposed by Deaton in the three-step AIDS.
The estimated elasticities were more inelastic for spirits (-0.14, P<0.01), followed by wines (-0.77, P<0.01) and beers (-0.93, P<0.01). Spirits reported less sensitivity to changes in the total budget, while wines reported the most sensitivity to changes in the total budget (expenditure elasticity). Wines also reported the most sensitivity related to quality for changes in the total budget (0,20, meaning that a 10% increase in a household's total expenditure increases the "quality" of purchased wines by 2%).
Own-price elasticities reported for spirits, wines and beers are consistently negative, and inelastic, in line with international evidence. Although own-price elasticities for spirits is more inelastic than found in most studies, its quality-elasticity is more positive and greater. This could be explained by the greater price dispersion of spirits, as well as spirits (and wine) being consumed more than beers in Chile. This in turn may be because consumers have the option of switching to cheaper, Chilean-produced spirits such as pisco and wines when prices rise. The existence of these relatively broad quality-elasticities points to the need for a change in the alcohol tax structure from the current ad-valorem tax to a specific tax that could reduce price dispersion and curb total consumption.
智利是拉丁美洲人均酒精消费量最高的国家之一，但在解决这一问题方面，公共政策和政策研究几乎没有取得任何进展。本研究的目的是估计智利三类酒精饮料（烈酒、葡萄酒和啤酒）的需求弹性（自价格、交叉价格、支出和质量）。
本研究使用了国家统计局 2011-2012 年开展的第七次家庭预算调查（VII Encuesta de Presupuestos Familiares）的数据。由于测量单位质量存在问题，因此采用了热插补法来处理存在问题的酒精购买数据。为了估计需求弹性，采用了 Deaton 提出的几乎理想需求系统（AIDS）方法。使用 Deaton 在三步 AIDS 中提出的方程，分别为每种饮料估计质量决策。
烈酒（-0.14，P<0.01）、葡萄酒（-0.77，P<0.01）和啤酒（-0.93，P<0.01）的估计弹性更缺乏弹性。烈酒对总预算变化的敏感性较低，而葡萄酒对总预算变化的敏感性最高（支出弹性）。葡萄酒对总预算变化相关的质量也最敏感（0.20，这意味着家庭总支出增加 10%会使购买葡萄酒的“质量”提高 2%）。
烈酒、葡萄酒和啤酒的自价格弹性报告均为负且缺乏弹性，与国际证据一致。尽管烈酒的自价格弹性比大多数研究报告的更缺乏弹性，但它的质量弹性更积极且更大。这可以用烈酒更大的价格分散度以及在智利烈酒（和葡萄酒）的消费比啤酒更多来解释。这反过来可能是因为当价格上涨时，消费者可以选择转向更便宜的智利产烈酒，如皮斯科和葡萄酒。这些相对广泛的质量弹性的存在表明，需要从现行的从价税转向特定税，以减少价格分散度并抑制总消费。
