The researchers analyzed the 1982 and 1989 samples separately to examine potential changes in the price sensitivity of youth alcohol use resulting from the introduction of a uniform MLDA of 21 years in all States. For both years, higher beer excise taxes significantly reduced both the frequency of youth drinking and the probability of heavy drinking. As with the studies by Grossman and colleagues (1987) and Coate and Grossman (1988), the estimates implied that a tax increase would reduce the fractions of frequent and fairly frequent young drinkers to a greater extent than the fraction of infrequent drinkers. More interestingly, Laixuthai and Chaloupka (1993) also found that the price sensitivity of youth drinking fell after the MLDA of 21 years was enacted in all States. For example, the investigators estimated that an increase in the Federal beer tax offsetting the effect of inflation since 1951 would have reduced the probability of having any binge-drinking episodes by 18.4 percent in 1982 but only by 6.5 percent in 1989.
