The impact of price policy on demand for alcohol in rural India

This study uses panel data from Indian Punjab

Abstract

Whether raising the price of addictive goods can reduce its burden is widely debated in many countries, largely due to lack of appropriate data and robust methods. 3 key concerns frequently raised in the literature are: unobserved heterogeneity; omitted variables; identification problem. Addressing these concerns, using robust instrument and employing unique individual-level panel data from Indian Punjab, this paper investigates two related propositions (i) will increase in alcohol price reduce its burden (ii) since greater incomes raise the costs of inebriation, will higher incomes affect consumption of alcohol negatively.

This is an output from the ‘Information, market creation and agricultural growth’ Project

Citation

Arjunan Subramanian, Parmod Kumar, The impact of price policy on demand for alcohol in rural India, Social Science & Medicine, Volume 191, 2017, Pages 176-185,

The impact of price policy on demand for alcohol in rural India

Updates to this page

Published 30 October 2017