The Wine Effect

Surveys show that the US states where wine is cheaper the rate of traffic fatalities is also lower.

Canadians are belived to have word out a policy that could reduce alcohol consumption by setting a minimum price for beer, wine and liquor. Wonk blog reader and Cornell University economist Brad Rickard has passed along new research he has done on the economics of alcohol consumption. This time it is to be done by making wine cheaper and more available.
Now, how is it possible that drinking will be cheaper yet its harmful effect will be reduced? In working paper for the American Association of Win Economists, Rickard and his team looked at the states that allow grocery stores to sell wine, versus those that limit such sales to liquor stores. Because of increased competition amongst the grocery stores to sell wine, it leads to both lower wine prices and higher rates of wine consumptions.
This is where the secret lies. The states where wine makes up larger part so total alcohol consumption tends to have lower rates of traffic fatalities. "Overall, these results indicate that an increase in beer and spirit consumption, as a share of total alcohol consumption, increases traffic fatalities," Rickard and his team write. “Where an increase in wine consumption as a share of total alcohol consumptions decrees traffic fatalities."
This conclusion makes sense because it was also corroborated by earlier studies. In 2007, the Journal of Preventive Medicine study concluded that wine was the least common alcohol consumed in binge drinking, which accounted for about 10 percent of binge-drinking episodes. Beer, in contrast, accounted for two thirds of binge-drinking episodes.
Since drinking-related traffic fatalities are on the rise in many American cities, Richards’s Work has drawn attention. It is not how much people drink as opposed to what they drink that is important. Nothing is wrong if state policies can encourage wine drinking by making it available and affordable to make the best of both worlds. People will get to drink to their heart's content and the number of traffic fatalities will come down at the same time.