Marijuana and Alcohol Evidence Using Border Analysis and Retail Sales Data

39 Pages Posted: 2 Nov 2017 Last revised: 25 Aug 2018

See all articles by Michele Baggio

Michele Baggio

University of Connecticut - Department of Economics

Alberto Chong

Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Department of Economics; Institute for Corruption Studies

Sungoh Kwon

University of Connecticut

Date Written: August 23, 2018

Abstract

We use retail scanner data on purchases of alcoholic beverages across US counties for 2006-2015 to study the link between medical marijuana laws (MMLs) and alcohol consumption. To do this we first exploit differences in the timing of marijuana laws among states and find that they are substitutes. We show that unlike traditional national-level analysis, focusing on contiguous border county-pairs provides unbiased estimates of the effect of MMLs on alcohol sales. Specifically, counties located in MML states reduced monthly alcohol sales by 12.4 percent. Results are robust to including placebo effective dates for MMLs in treated states.

Keywords: Alcohol, Border Analysis, Difference-In-Difference, Medical Marijuana Laws, US Counties.

JEL Classification: I18, K32

Suggested Citation

Baggio, Michele and Chong, Alberto and Kwon, Sungoh, Marijuana and Alcohol Evidence Using Border Analysis and Retail Sales Data (August 23, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3063288 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3063288

Michele Baggio (Contact Author)

University of Connecticut - Department of Economics ( email )

365 Fairfield Way, U-1063
Storrs, CT 06269-1063
United States

Alberto Chong

Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Department of Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 3992
Atlanta, GA 30302-3992
United States

Institute for Corruption Studies

Stevenson Hall 425
Normal, IL 61790-4200
United States

Sungoh Kwon

University of Connecticut ( email )

Storrs, CT 06269-1063
United States

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