Internet advertising regulations and alcohol consumption

Abstract: Alcohol consumption is well-known to cause issues such as drunk-driving fatalities, liver diseases and heart diseases. Many countries therefore work actively with alcohol policy to reduce these risks. A common policy is to regulate alcohol advertising, generally in the form of restrictions or bans for different beverage types. The effectiveness of these policies is, however, unclear so far. Moreover, internet usage has increased rapidly during the past decades, and there is a lack of studies on advertising regulations on the internet. I take use of data from 13 countries within the EU and EEA with focus on the period 1995-2012, to study if advertising bans and restrictions on the internet decrease alcohol consumption. I outline and estimate an alcohol demand function using panel data regressions. The results indicate that advertising bans may be an ineffective policy measure, while restrictions might help in decreasing alcohol consumption.