Relika Stoppel

• It is commonly known that irresponsible alcohol use can have adverse effects. For some people, it results in health problems, for others in productivity loss, and some experience the worst possible outcome of alcohol misuse - death. This paper estimates the effect of reduced alcohol sales hours on alcohol-attributable mortality (AAM) in Estonia. Using novel mortality data from 1997 to 2015, this paper analyzes the effect of alcohol sales policies at both the county level and the country level. By applying the difference-in-differences method and the ARIMA model, this paper finds that the alcohol sales policy reduced AAM to between 1.710 and 2.401 deaths per 100,000 per month, which equals a reduction of 31% to 40% in AAM deaths. These findings suggest that individuals who are the most at risk of dying from alcohol-attributable causes of death benefit remarkably from reduced alcohol availability.