College students as a group are at particularly high risk for alcohol-related problems. To estimate alcohol demand for this population, Chaloupka and Wechsler (1996) merged drinking data from 17,000 college students with measures of beer prices and an index of drunk driving laws prevailing in the locations of the colleges. The results suggested that college students were less responsive to alcohol prices than other groups. The researchers did find, however, that more severe drunk driving penalties tended to reduce both drinking and binge drinking. These effects were found among underage and older students, both male and female.
