scholarly journals Alcohol Consumption and Closed Borders - How COVID-19 Restrictions have Impacted Alcohol Sales and Consumption in Europe

Author(s):  
Håkan Leifman ◽  
Kalle Dramstad ◽  
Emil Juslin

Abstract BackgroundThe closing of bars, restaurants and international borders during the COVID-19 pandemic led to significant changes in alcohol availability. The study provides a first systematic overview of the monthly development of alcohol sales in Europe during the pandemic in order to determine the effect of closed borders on the sales and consumption of alcohol.MethodsThe study covers 60 months from January 2015 to December 2020 in 14 northern-European countries with excise revenue data for beer, wine, spirits separately and summed, converted into litres of pure alcohol per capita 15+ as a proxy for alcohol sales. March-December 2020 is seen as the pandemic period. The analyses consist of (1) descriptive trends of sales before and during the pandemic, (2) assessment of the pandemic impact on sales by time-series analyses and (3) case studies of countries with substantial cross-border inflow or outflow of alcohol.ResultsThe result shows an overall reduction in alcohol sales during the pandemic. Nevertheless, the results differ based on the level of cross-border purchasing flows pre-pandemic, as countries with high cross-border inflow saw an increase in domestic sales as the pandemic hit. ConclusionThe closing of intra-European borders had a significant redistributing effect on alcohol sales. While noting sales increases, cross-border inflow countries generally saw a decrease in total alcohol consumption as not all cross-border purchases were replaced by domestic sales. This has important policy implications as large volumes of cross-border inflow of alcohol can negatively affect excise revenue as well as public health outcomes. The methodology can be used to further explore the reliance of different purchasing streams in a domestic alcohol market.

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 499-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott MacDonald ◽  
Jinhui Zhao ◽  
Basia Pakula ◽  
Tim Stockwell ◽  
Lorissa Martens

Alcohol sales data provide a more accurate indication of alcohol consumption than alternative methods such as population surveys. This information can be used to better understand epidemiological issues related to alcohol consumption, policy development and evaluation. Official sales records were collected for the 28 regional districts of British Columbia (BC) for 2002–2005, while homemade alcohol was estimated from survey data. Alcohol consumption rates were found to vary across geographic regions, by season, and with population level demographics. Government stores were the largest source of alcohol consumption in BC, accounting for 45.1% of total alcohol consumption in 2004. U-Brews/U-Vins accounted for 4.0%, private liquor stores accounted for 27.5% of the total, and homemade alcohol made up 4.3% of total alcohol consumption. Analysis also revealed that the average alcohol concentration in wines (12.53%) and coolers (6.77%) has been underestimated by Statistics Canada. The feasibility of developing this type of alcohol monitoring system is examined. Finally, implications for the development of targeted public health initiatives and future research are discussed.


Author(s):  
Tereza Slováčková ◽  
Naďa Birčiaková ◽  
Jana Stávková

The paper deals with a forecast of developments in alcohol consumption based on current alcohol consumption per capita (expressed in litres of pure alcohol), and time series extrapolations. Alcohol consumption is to be considered from the vantage point of knowing the specifics of the product and the consequences of its excessive consumption. The predictive methodology makes use of the Box‑Jenkins method; the ARIMA model, taking into account the autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation process, which is a prerequisite for the successful identification of a time series model; model parameter estimation; appropriate transformations of time series; determining the order of differentiation and subsequent verification of the model. The chosen methodology for future trends in alcohol consumptions is a prerequisite for the proposed optional measures to control alcohol consumption in the Czech Republic. Due to the long term nature of the process to draw up and implement alcohol consumption regulation measures, the forecast covers the forthcoming 10 years.


2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 159-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Håkan Leifman

This study examines trends in alcohol consumption in Sweden from 1990 to 2002, with the emphasis on the period after 1995 with Sweden as a member of the European Union (EU). The specific aim of the study is to study gender-specific and age-specific trends in self-reported consumption by means of five general population surveys conducted between 1990 and 2002. Trends in the proportion of high consumers were also studied. Alcohol sales and estimates of unrecorded consumption indicate that Swedish per capita alcohol consumption (per person aged 15 or older) rose by approximately 27 per cent, from 7.8 litres of pure alcohol in 1990 to 9.9 litres in 2002. Approximately 90 per cent of this increase has occurred since 1996. Analyses of self-reported consumption from survey data confirm this trend with more than a 30 per cent increase for both genders (aged 16–75 years) since 1996. Among women, this is mainly due to increased wine consumption, and among men to augmented consumption of wine as well as beer. Furthermore, the proportion of high consumers has increased – and more so than the per capita consumption. The study also shows that changes in consumption during the period of 1990 to 2002 differ for the various gender-and age-specific groups. Among women, for in-stance, the increase since 1996 has been strongest for the oldest women (50–75 years of age), and since 1998 statistically significant only among this group. The weakest, and thus not statistically significant, increase has occurred among women between the ages of 30 and 49. It is important to track the changes not only among men and women and various age groups, but also in the different sub-groups of the population, since changes in per capita consumption are strongly related to changes in different alcohol-related problems. Other groups of importance are e.g. various social classes (including the long-term unemployed and people on long-term disability benefits), regions, family units and, not least, different drinking groups, including high consumers. Improved knowledge of how consumption changes in different socio-demo-graphic groups will also improve our understanding of the causes and mechanisms behind changes in alcohol consumption in society.


2020 ◽  

BACKGROUND: Harmful alcohol consumption has a negative impact on the health and social lives of individuals. Alcohol consumption is risky for the development of non-communicable diseases, can lead to the development of serious illnesses, and, unfortunately, can lead to death, injuries, or accidents. Societies and especially individuals should be more involved in the reduction of harmful alcohol consumption. AIM: The paper deals with the analysis of the status of, and trends in, the consumption of pure alcohol per capita in the EU countries between 1980 and 2015. Correlation analysis was conducted to detect the association between the per capita consumption of alcohol and some selected socio-economic indicators. METHODS: Statistical characteristics, such as average, median, range, standard deviation, and the coefficient of variation were used to describe the level of the per capita consumption of pure alcohol in the EU. Boxplot figures detected the extremely high/low levels of the indicators that were analysed. Index numbers were used to calculate the relative change in alcohol consumption. The existence of a linear relationship was discovered through correlation analysis. Useful figures helped to present the status or change in the per capita consumption of alcohol and the relationship between alcohol consumption and selected indicators. RESULTS: The trend of the per capita consumption of pure alcohol in the EU was positive. The average per capita consumption of alcohol declined from 12.9 litres in 1980 to 10.4 litres in 2015. Not only did the average or median consumption decline, but also the variability of alcohol consumption per capita declined till 2010. The greatest reduction was found for the Mediterranean countries: Italy (-57.3%), Spain (53.3%), Greece (-49.7%), and France (37.4%). On the other hand, in some “new” EU countries an increase in the per capita consumption of alcohol occurred, the highest being in Estonia. On the EU level, no statistically significant correlation was discovered between the per capita consumption of alcohol and gross domestic product per capita or between alcohol consumption and countries’ unemployment rates.


Author(s):  
TK Vinod Kumar

Consumption of alcohol has an impact on violent crimes and homicides. The study examines the association between aggregate level consumption of spirit and homicide rates in the State of Kerala in India. Time-series analyses were conducted by building Autoregressive Moving Average with Exogenous Variables (ARMAX) models and OLS Regression models to explain the relationship between the monthly rate of consumption of alcoholic spirits and homicide rates. The study concludes that consumption of alcoholic spirits has a statistically significant impact on the total homicide rates and the male and female homicide rates. The study has significant policy implications being one of the first studies examining the relationship between alcohol consumption and homicide rates in India and suggesting methods to address challenges of adverse public health consequences associated with alcohol consumption.


1973 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-437
Author(s):  
Sarfaraz Khan Qureshi

In the Summer 1973 issue of the Pakistan Development Review, Mr. Mohammad Ghaffar Chaudhry [1] has dealt with two very important issues relating to the intersectoral tax equity and the intrasectoral tax equity within the agricultural sector in Pakistan. Using a simple criterion for vertical tax equity that implies that the tax rate rises with per capita income such that the ratio of revenue to income rises at the same percentage rate as per capita income, Mr. Chaudhry found that the agricultural sector is overtaxed in Pakistan. Mr. Chaudhry further found that the land tax is a regressive levy with respect to the farm size. Both findings, if valid, have important policy implications. In this note we argue that the validity of the findings on intersectoral tax equity depends on the treatment of water rate as tax rather than the price of a service provided by the Government and on the shifting assumptions regard¬ing the indirect taxes on imports and domestic production levied by the Central Government. The relevance of the findings on the intrasectoral tax burden would have been more obvious if the tax liability was related to income from land per capita.


Author(s):  
Lyubomyr Sozanskyy

In the article, a comparative interregional and cross-border assessment of socio-economic development of the Transcarpathian region is conducted. The results of the study are based on an analysis of the level and dynamics of such key indicators of economic and social development of the region as GRP per capita, employment rate, unemployment rate, average monthly salary, etc. According to the results of interregional comparisons, the low level of efficiency of the economy but the positive dynamics of some indicators of the labor market of the Transcarpathian region was revealed. In particular, among the regions of Ukraine in 2013-2017, the region was 22nd in terms of GRP per capita and 19th in terms of employment. At the same time, by unemployment, it rose from 15th in 2013 to 10th in 2018, and the average monthly wage ranged from 20th to 7th, respectively. Cross-border comparisons showed a significant lag behind the Transcarpathian region from the neighboring regions of Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary for all considered socio-economic indicators. Thus, in particular, according to the indicator of GRP per capita, this lag compared to the Kosice region (Slovakia) in 2017 was 11.4 times. The average monthly salary in Transcarpathian region is 4 times lower than in the neighboring Kosice and Presov regions of Slovakia and the Podkarpackie voivodship of Poland. The positive dynamics in the direction of reducing the above-mentioned gaps in the level of socio-economic development of the analyzed regions in 2017-2018 are revealed. In addition, a regional peculiarity has been identified – the Transcarpathian region and the regions it borders, lag substantially behind the countries they belong to by the level of socio-economic development. As a result, the conclusion is drawn that the results of the conducted inter-regional and transboundary assessment of the socio-economic development of the Transcarpathian region will facilitate the development of inter-regional and interstate programs and strategies for the development of the Carpathian transboundary region to eliminate the identified imbalances.


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