In formulating the appropriate alcohol tax policies, it would be useful to have information on the differential price responsiveness of the outcomes considered here by gender, race, and ethnicity. For example, evidence suggests that certain drinking patterns are more sensitive to price among female college students than among male college students. It also appears as if child abuse committed by women is more responsive to price than child abuse committed by men, although that finding is based on fairly old data. To date, however, no large-scale studies have considered gender differences in price effects for a variety of outcomes in a systematic fashion. Similarly, little is known about racial or ethnic differences in price effects. Thus, researchers do not know whether the beneficial effects of tax increases on alcohol abuse will be shared equally by all population subgroups, or whether policies in addition to tax increases must be pursued to curtail abuse in certain groups.
