As is the case with much social science research, these findings and implications must be qualified because they are not derived from controlled experiments that can definitively establish that a certain factor causes a specific outcome. One can argue that the effects of taxes or prices in the studies just summarized are biased because they do not account for unmeasured determinants of consumption that are correlated with the cost of alcohol. For example, States in which antidrinking sentiment is widespread and alcohol consumption is low may enact high alcohol excise taxes as part of the political process. In this case, the price elasticities that emerge from analyses that only consider price but omit overall drinking sentiment overstate the true influence of price. Conversely, States in which pro-drinking sentiment is widespread (i.e., antidrinking sentiment is weak) and alcohol consumption is high may enact high alcohol taxes because the taxation of alcohol is an attractive source of revenue. In these cases, price elasticities are understated if they are obtained from analyses that omit drinking sentiment.
