Two studies estimated the effects of price on alcohol use by youths ages 16 to 21 using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (Grossman et al. 1987; Coate and Grossman 1988). The data were collected in two cycles of surveys conducted from 1971 to 1975 and from 1976 to 1980, respectively. Both studies concluded that beer consumption is inversely related to both the monetary price of beer and the State minimum legal drinking age (MLDA). The studies also evaluated whether the effects of price differ according to the youths’ consumption patterns. To this end, the investigators classified the youths into infrequent drinkers who consumed beer less than once per week, fairly frequent drinkers who consumed beer one to three times per week, and frequent drinkers who consumed beer four to seven times per week. These analyses found that higher prices and MLDAs reduced not only the fraction of youths who drank beer infrequently but that the fractions of youths who consumed beer fairly frequently and frequently declined more in both absolute and percentage terms than did the
