title: Alcohol consumption, beverage prices and measurement error.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Alcohol price data collected by the American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association (ACCRA) have been widely used in studies of alcohol consumption and related behaviors. A number of problems with these data suggest that they contain substantial measurement error, which biases conventional statistical estimators toward a finding of little or no effect of prices on behavior. We test for measurement error, assess the magnitude of the bias and provide an alternative estimator that is likely to be superior.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study utilizes data on per capita alcohol consumption across U.S. states and the years 1982-1997. State and federal alcohol taxes are used as instrumental variables for prices.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Formal tests strongly confim the hypothesis of measurement error. Instrumental variable estimates of the price elasticity of demand range from -0.53 to -1.24. These estimates are substantially larger in absolute value than ordinary least squares estimates, which sometimes are not significantly different from zero or even positive.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The ACCRA price data are substantially contaminated with measurement error, but using state and federal taxes as instrumental variables mitigates the problem.
authors.affiliation: Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana 59717-0292, USA. djyoung@montana.edu
authors.forename: Douglas J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Young
authors.forename: Agnieszka
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bielinska-Kwapisz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000191:economics* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003132:Commerce; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012067:Religion