Impact of minimum unit pricing on youth alcohol consumption: insights from Lebanon

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of introducing an alcohol minimum unit pricing policy on youth's off-premise alcohol consumption. We rely on price elasticities derived using stated preference alcohol purchase data from a survey of 1024 university students in Lebanon. Selectively targeting drinks with high ethanol concentration by applying a minimum unit pricing (MUP) corresponding to the maximum price that respondents are willing to pay per beverage achieves a reduction in ethanol intake close to 0.23 l/month (∼28% of pre-MUP ethanol intake). Imposing a flat MUP corresponding to the average price respondents are willing to pay for all alcoholic beverages decreases ethanol intake by nearly half the reduction from the previous targeted MUP. This work provides evidence in favour of MUP in conjunction with taxation capable of substantially reducing alcohol consumption. We also document a positive welfare benefit of MUP.

Keywords: Almost-ideal demand system; alcohol; elasticity; minimum unit pricing; volumetric choice experiment; youth.