Time inconsistency and alcohol sales restrictions

Alcohol Availability and Alcohol Consumption: New Evidence from Sunday Sales Restrictions in Canada

Many US states and Canadian provinces have recently lifted bans on off-premise retail liquor sales on Sundays, yet there is no evidence on how such provisions affect drinking. We investigate this issue using unique information on day-specific alcohol consumption from Canada’s National Population Health Surveys (1994-1999) and variation across provinces in the presence of a Sunday sales restrict...

The Pharmacological Channel Revisited: Alcohol Sales Restrictions and Crime in Bogota

State Casket Sales Restrictions: A Pointless Undertaking?

We utilize a new micro dataset of prices of funeral goods and services at individual funeral homes, plus data from the Census to examine the effects of state regulations that restrict entry into funeral goods market. In particular, some states have regulations that allow only licensed funeral homes to sell caskets, while others allow unlicensed retailers, such as Costco, to compete with funeral...

Privatization of Alcohol Sales

In November 2010, Washington State will be voting on two initiatives, I-1100 and I-1105, that aim to privatize alcohol sales, ending the state’s monopoly on spirits. Supporters of the initiatives claim that privatization has the potential to save the state hundreds of thousands of dollars; opponents counter that it could end up costing the state more in the long-run, as problem drinking increas...

Technology and Time Inconsistency∗

Standard analyses of economic policy assume exponential discounting, even though empirical and experimental evidence shows that preferences are time-inconsistent and discounting is hyperbolic. When policy makers– or the voters they must satisfy– apply smaller discount rates for long-term than for short-term decisions, they benefit from strategically investing in infrastructure and technologies ...