Demand for Marijuana, Alcohol and Tobacco: Participation, Levels of Consumption, and Cross-Equation Correlations

We investigated marijuana, alcohol and tobacco consumption using micro-unit data from the Australian National Drug Strategy Household Surveys. We estimated a multivariate probit (MVP) model to allow for correlations across participations of different drugs and a sequential model to study separately...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhao, X., Harris, Mark
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia 2004
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/81807
Description
Summary:We investigated marijuana, alcohol and tobacco consumption using micro-unit data from the Australian National Drug Strategy Household Surveys. We estimated a multivariate probit (MVP) model to allow for correlations across participations of different drugs and a sequential model to study separately the determinants of participation and the levels of consumption. The MVP results indicate significant and positive correlations across all three drugs through unobservable charac- teristics, with the correlation coefficient between marijuana and tobacco being the highest. The MVP approach allows for better prediction of conditional and joint probabilities, providing valuable information for policy makers in a multidrug framework.