Comments on: Hmm

By: Robert Scarth

Robert Scarth — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 23:00:51 +0000

When I was a student I brewed my own beer – at a cost of something like 12p a pint, when the cost in a pub was about £1.20. Put the price of beer up and I imagine more people will do the same.
Of course once this is realised they’ll start demanding that home brew be banned.

The BMA is a most obnoxious, arrogant, ignorant and foolish organisation. Generally doctors are as insufferably arrogant as they are ignorant of basic statistics and economics; they believe that because they have been to medical school they are qualified to decide what behaviour is best for the health of individuals. A finer example of the insidious nature of socialism must be difficult to find. A large group of presumably intelligent and otherwise decent people have their moral attitudes utterly warped by the poison of state control.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:13:25 +0000

There’s something about this in Tim Harfords book (the logic of life). p59, discusses Becker and Murphys theory of rational addiction. The idea is that for drinking and smoking the alcoholics and the heavy smokers are the ones who have to cut down most when prices rise. Since they’re the ones in most danger from liver disease etc the benefits in reduced mortality rate are high. Evidence cited is a paper by Cook and Tauchen ” the effect of liquor taxes on heavy drinking” (Bell J. of Econ 1982)

By: Thom

Thom — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:13:11 +0000

Surely there would be 2 counter pressures at play here? One to discourage drinking heavily due to price so that you can afford to live and the other throwing caution to the wind, drinking yourself into oblivion and being ignorant of the consequences in the morning?

And which portion of the population will be most affected by the latter pressure do we think?

By: Gallimaufry

Gallimaufry — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:56:42 +0000

Let’s test this on a small scale first to obtain the evidence on which to base the policy. Remove all subsidies from bars in the Houses of Parliament and increase prices. The quality of legislation might increase as a side-effect. However, making this permanent might dissuade sponging alkies from standing for Parliament.

By: Pogo

Pogo — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:37:05 +0000

Surely the BMA must be right. After all, the sky-high booze prices in Sweden, Finland and Denmark have completely eradicated alcohol-related problems.

Oh… Hang on a minute…

By: Letters From A Tory

Letters From A Tory — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:18:50 +0000

I completely agree with your train of thought. I looked at those BMA numbers and wondered how on earth anyone in touch with reality in the UK could expect that kind of response to an extra few pence on booze prices.

Honestly, what rubbish. Propoganda at its very worst.

http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com

By: MarkS

MarkS — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:54:49 +0000

The Englishman has these figures…

http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/

the price elasticities of demand for beer, wine, and distilled spirits are -0.3, -1.0, and -1.5, respectively (Leung and Phelps 1993). (3) These estimates suggest that beer consumption is relatively insensitive to price changes, whereas demand for wine and distilled spirits is very responsive to price.

By: Effing and Blinding

Effing and Blinding — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:52:54 +0000

As with all these things, there is a range of elasticities across the population.

Without knowing diddly squat about such things, my guess is that the elasticities will be highest amongst those not dependent on alchohol and lowest amongst those who are – possibly even across income groups.

Therefore, those at greatest risk of an alcohol-related death will carrying on drinking, but with less money in their pocket to spend on other things they might be better off with (decent food, medical care, looking after their families etc).