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Study: Fewer Alcohol Ads Would Lower Underage Drinking
December 2, 2003

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Research Summary

New research concludes that eliminating alcohol advertising would lower underage drinking and binge drinking, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The Alcohol Advertising and Alcohol Consumption by Adolescents Working Paper, by authors Henry Saffer and Dhaval Dave, also said that doubling the prices of alcoholic products would lower underage drinking by 28 percent and reduce underage binge drinking by 51 percent.

The research was based on an evaluation of underage drinking between 1996 and 1998 using the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future survey and the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Behavior from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Saffer and Dave compared the data from the surveys to reports collected by Competitive Media Reporting on the prevalence of alcohol advertising in local markets during the same study period.

The researchers found that alcohol advertising "has a positive effect" on whether young people drink at all and how much.

According to the authors, the study "suggests that the complete elimination of alcohol advertising could reduce adolescent monthly alcohol participation from about 25 percent to about 21 percent. For binge participation, the reduction might be from about 12 percent to about 7 percent."

The researchers also determined that pricing also impacts drinking behavior. "As a result, both advertising and price policies are shown to have the potential to substantially reduce adolescent alcohol participation," they said.

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