Drinking Age Laws and Highway Mortality Rates: Cause and Effect

This paper presents estimates of the effects of the drinking age and beer taxes on youth motor vehicle mortality. A simultaneous equation model is used and the results show that the drinking age is a function of mortality rates. The results also show that for eighteen‐ to twenty‐year‐old drivers an increase in the drinking age to twenty‐one, which is approximately 8 percent, would reduce mortality by approximately 18 percent. Also a 100 percent increase in the real beer tax, which is approximately $1.50 per case, would reduce highway mortality by about 27 percent.