Alcohol advertising bans and alcohol abuse.
Henry Saffer [Saffer (1991) Journal of Health Economics 10, 65-79] concludes that bans on broadcast advertising for alcoholic beverages reduce total alcohol consumption, motor vehicle fatalities, and cirrhosis deaths. A reexamination of his data and procedures reveals a number of flaws. First, there is evidence of reverse causation: countries with low consumption/death rates tend to adopt advertising bans, creating a (spurious) negative correlation between bans and consumption/death rates. Second, even this correlation largely disappears when the estimates are corrected for serial correlation. Third, estimates based on the components of consumption--spirits, beer and wine--mostly indicate that bans are associated with increased consumption.
Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, Montana State University, Bozeman 59717.
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D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000329:Advertising / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D000434:Alcoholic Beverages / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D002170:Canada / Q000453:epidemiology; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D014943:Global Health; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000401:mortality; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011640:Public Policy; D012044:Regression Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology