Adolescent alcohol and marijuana consumption
Subtitle: is there really a gateway effect?
By: Rosalie Liccardo Pacula.
Contributors: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 6348; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 6348.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 43
Subjects: Youth -- Alcohol use.; Youth -- Drug use.; Marijuana.
Description: This research analyzes the contemporaneous and intertemporal relationship between the demands for alcohol and marijuana by youths and young adults. A general theory of multi-commodity habit formation is developed and tested using data from the 1983-1984 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. An Adjusted Tobit specification is employed for estimating the empirical model. Habit persistence is distinguished from unobserved heterogeneity through a reduced form instrumental variable technique. The results show that higher beer prices significantly reduce the demand for both alcohol and marijuana, indicating a contemporaneous complementarity between these two substances even after controlling for commodity-specific habit formation. Further, prior use of alcohol and cigarettes significantly increases the likelihood of currently using marijuana, providing evidence in support of the gateway hypothesis.
Notes: "January 1998."

JEL no. I18.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 33-37).

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