Neumann M, Toepffer J
Volkswirtschaftliches Institut, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Fortschr Med. 1995 Nov 30;113(33):476-9.
Alcohol consumption is usually regarded as sizeable economic burden to society. Here it is argued that only the external costs of alcohol consumption represent the true costs to society. The methodological and empirical difficulties encountered in assessing these costs may explain the inadequacy of most of the empirical studies available. Therefore, at the moment a valid assessment of the economic burden of alcohol consumption in Germany is not feasible. Anyhow, such an assessment seems to be of questionable value because the actual situation is compared with a hypothetical non-alcohol situation. Therefore, economists should focus on cost-benefit-analysis of real-world policy options.
酒精消费通常被视为社会的一项巨大经济负担。本文认为，只有酒精消费的外部成本才代表对社会的真正成本。评估这些成本时遇到的方法和实证困难可能解释了现有大多数实证研究的不足。因此，目前在德国对酒精消费的经济负担进行有效评估是不可行的。无论如何，这样的评估似乎价值存疑，因为实际情况是与假设的无酒精情况进行比较。因此，经济学家应专注于对现实世界政策选项的成本效益分析。
