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Paying the Tab: The Costs and Benefits of Alcohol Control

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This careful study, clearly written, explores and analyzes the social science literature of alcohol control in the United States since the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. The author explains the social costs of alcohol use and, especially, misuse as scientists have come to understand the subject. Professor Cook examines public policy toward alcoholic beverages, including their taxation. The relative costs of alcoholic beverages for the consumer have declined, especially since the 1950s, because of structural changes in the industries that supply them (especially in the brewing industry) and of the industries that distribute them. Those costs have also declined because of public policy decisions, including decisions to lower the effective rate of taxation as Americans have experienced inflation. The result, Cook concludes, is that the social costs of alcohol misuse are not covered by the tax revenues gained form the sales of alcoholic beverages.