The Impact of Alcohol on Mental Health, Physical Fitness, and Job Performance / Marigee Bacolod, Jesse M. Cunha, Yu-Chu Shen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bacolod, Marigee.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Cunha, Jesse M.

Shen, Yu-Chu.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w23542.

NBER working paper series no. w23542

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2017.

Summary:

We study the impact of legal access to alcohol on a range of behavioral and physical outcomes of U.S. Army soldiers in a regression discontinuity design. The wealth of novel data collected by the military on cognitive ability, psychological health, and family history allows us to explore how impacts vary with risk factors for alcohol consumption. Overall, we observe a large and significant increase in drinking after the 21st birthday, but the increases are largest amongst those who were depressed, had a family history of mental health problems, had better coping ability, and had higher cognitive ability. Despite the large increase in consumption, we do not find any meaningful impacts of legal access to alcohol - overall or in any sub-group - on any of the short-term outcomes we observe, including suicidal tendencies, depression, tobacco use, physical fitness, psychological health, deployability, smoking, and job-related infractions. Acknowledging the limitations for extrapolation out of sample, we discuss the policy implications of our results.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2017.