Binge Drinking and Risk Preferences: an application to college students in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES

Congreso; Reunión Anual 2020; 2020

Asociación Argentina de Economía Política

This study analyzes the decision of consuming alcohol in the modality of excessive episodic consumption (binge drinking) among college students. It uses primary data especially collected to this aim, whichincludes the design and implementation of the Consumption Habits in University Students? Survey (CHUS Survey). This survey took place in August 2019 in two Argentinian Universities: Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, interviewing 1397 first year students of theEconomic Sciences School in both Universities took part of this study, who represent the 73% of the enrolled students. The survey assesses principally knowledge about risky alcohol consumption, characteristics of consumption of alcohol and other substances, alcohol consumption in peer groups,preferences about alcoholic beverages, risk perception and vulnerability, propensity and accessibility to alcohol and other substances. Using the Latent Class Analysis 5 classes about risk preferences were defined, being the largest the one that groups students with the highest tolerance to risk (45% of thesample). On the contrary, the group most averse to risk represents only 3% of the sample. A probit model corrected by self-selection is estimated to analyze the decision of having a binge drinking episode. It is found that being man, participating in pre-gaming frequently and being a risk lover increase theprobability of harmful alcohol consumption in a binge drinking pattern.