UNDERSTANDING HETEROGENEITY IN PRICE ELASTICITIES IN THE DEMAND FOR ALCOHOL FOR OLDER INDIVIDUALS
利用健康与退休研究数据，通过有限混合模型发现老年人对酒精价格的反应存在两个潜在群体：一个对价格敏感但消费少，另一个不敏感但消费多，这对税收政策有重要启示。
This paper estimates the price elasticity of demand for alcohol using Health and Retirement Study data. To account for unobserved heterogeneity in price responsiveness, we use finite mixture models. We recover two latent groups, one is significantly responsive to price, but the other is unresponsive. The group with greater responsiveness is disadvantaged in multiple domains, including health, financial resources, education and perhaps even planning abilities. These results have policy implications. The unresponsive group drinks more heavily, suggesting that a higher tax would fail to curb the negative alcohol-related externalities. In contrast, the more disadvantaged group is more responsive to price, thus suffering greater deadweight loss, yet this group consumes fewer drinks per day and might be less likely to impose negative externalities.