An inquiry into the causal effects of alcohol policy interventions: The impact on health, poverty and crime in Sweden during the first quarter of the twentieth century

The adverse effects of alcohol consumption have been a topic of debate for at least 200-years on both sides of the Atlantic.

Due to the lack of causal inference in previous studies, there is only very limited knowledge on the extent to which regulations of alcohol actually have had the intended societal effects on health, crime and poverty.

In this project we address this issue by using a novel design to examine causal effects of alcohol policy regulation on adverse societal outcomes in the following areas:   Overall and cause-specific mortality and morbidityAssault and criminalityPoverty among children and adultsWe will utilize the fact that city-specific restrictions had rather drastic and sizable effects on recorded alcohol sales in different parts of Sweden before the implementation of a nation-wide policy in the 1920s.

During the period 1900 to 1920 we observe a substantial city-level variation in regulations, pricing of and access to alcohol given by local taxation and disinvestment policy on alcohol sales.

Before the implementation of the nation-wide ‘Bratt-system’ in early 1920s, local initiatives in three major cities (Stockholm  Göteborg, Jönköping) to implement individual quotas on alcohol purchase provide a unique opportunity to examine the historically most strict interventions on alcohol sales in Sweden.

By using a novel longitudinal dataset and by applying a quasi-experimental study design to examine the impact of local differences in alcohol policy interventions on socio-economic outcomes over time, this project will provide a solid ground, not only for interpreting the importance of the guiding principles of alcohol policy regulation more generally, but also to inform on the effectiveness of alcohol policy measures debated also today.