Alcohol taxes seem like the go-to intervention from what I can tell. Kilian et al. 2023 reports that doubling alcohol taxes reduces alcohol consumption by 10%. But I’m unsure the causal-correlational mix of the evidence. When I’ve looked at less comprehensive reviews of only natural experiments, they come off as more equivocal.
Does anyone know of any organization’s focusing on advocacy for alcohol taxes?
Reset Alcohol is an initiative by Vital Strategies, which has received a $10mil grant in 2024 (following $15 million in 2022) from Open Philanthropy. They reportedly contributed to the passage of a recent alcohol tax in Sri Lanka. Concentric Policies appears to be focusing on tobacco control—presumably because they / AIM thought it was more tractable?
There’s been huge amounts of work done around reducing alcohol consumption and crime, the evidence base is incredibly good. As with many of these things the problem is getting policy change over the line. If my memory serves me correctly there’s pretty slamdunk evidence for these being goog...
1) Increasing quantity of the cheapest alcohol unit available 2) Timings of sale like you say 3) Less outlets selling alcohol, and alcohol less obvious in supermarkets.
I’m sure there will be more newer ones too my memory is 15 years old here.
Idk about magnitudes but in my country, Ecuador, alcoholism is a huge problem. We have some sin taxes on alcohol, but it seems difficult to raise them in part because binge-drinking is such a popular passtime and in part because there is lots of illegal production of moonshine-type alcohol that would likely gain market share with higher taxes on formal-sector alcohol products
Does anyone know if satellite and AI technology authorities could more easily identify acreage dedicated to sugar cane cultivation and tax this land more heavily than land devoted to other crops? Sugar cane is an important input for much of the bootleg moonshine in Ecuador, to my knowledge. Sugar cane also produces other harmful products, so I think taxing its production in this way could have other helpful effects and lead to more land and other agricultural resources being devoted to healthier crops
Alcohol taxes seem like the go-to intervention from what I can tell. Kilian et al. 2023 reports that doubling alcohol taxes reduces alcohol consumption by 10%. But I’m unsure the causal-correlational mix of the evidence. When I’ve looked at less comprehensive reviews of only natural experiments, they come off as more equivocal.
Does anyone know of any organization’s focusing on advocacy for alcohol taxes?
Reset Alcohol is an initiative by Vital Strategies, which has received a $10mil grant in 2024 (following $15 million in 2022) from Open Philanthropy. They reportedly contributed to the passage of a recent alcohol tax in Sri Lanka. Concentric Policies appears to be focusing on tobacco control—presumably because they / AIM thought it was more tractable?
The relationship between liquor stores being open and crime rates is pretty clear. I don’t know how much work has been done on changing hours when alcohol can be sold, but it seems worth exploring as a policy intervention.
Interrupted Time Series Analysis of Bar/Tavern Closing Hours and Violent Crime
Effectiveness of Policies Restricting Hours of Alcohol Sales in Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption and Related Harms
Alcohol availability and crime: Lessons from liberalized weekend sales restrictions
There’s been huge amounts of work done around reducing alcohol consumption and crime, the evidence base is incredibly good. As with many of these things the problem is getting policy change over the line. If my memory serves me correctly there’s pretty slamdunk evidence for these being goog...
1) Increasing quantity of the cheapest alcohol unit available
2) Timings of sale like you say
3) Less outlets selling alcohol, and alcohol less obvious in supermarkets.
I’m sure there will be more newer ones too my memory is 15 years old here.
I’ve spoken to Concentric Policies about this, IIRC they also do a bit of work (less than tobacco) on alcohol
Idk about magnitudes but in my country, Ecuador, alcoholism is a huge problem. We have some sin taxes on alcohol, but it seems difficult to raise them in part because binge-drinking is such a popular passtime and in part because there is lots of illegal production of moonshine-type alcohol that would likely gain market share with higher taxes on formal-sector alcohol products
Does anyone know if satellite and AI technology authorities could more easily identify acreage dedicated to sugar cane cultivation and tax this land more heavily than land devoted to other crops? Sugar cane is an important input for much of the bootleg moonshine in Ecuador, to my knowledge. Sugar cane also produces other harmful products, so I think taxing its production in this way could have other helpful effects and lead to more land and other agricultural resources being devoted to healthier crops