Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The consequences of excessive alcohol consumption are numerous and well-known, ranging from health issues to social repercussions – such as community and domestic violence. Apart from having a direct effect on drinkers’ health, access to alcohol may influence community and intra-household dynamics leading to subtler repercussions on any of the household member, including infants. Still, broader consequences of alcohol access have received little attention in the literature. In this paper, I examine the impact of prenatal exposure to a less alcohol-friendly environment on children’s human capital accumulation. I take advantage of the adoption of mandatory night closing hours of bars and restaurants in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area, Brazil, between 2001 and 2005. I exploit the geographic variation in the timing of the adoption of these laws to identify their effect, using a difference-in-difference strategy. Capitalizing on linked confidential data I assess morbidity and mortality using mother fixed effects in my preferred specification. My preliminary findings suggest that curtailing access to alcohol improves children’s health at birth. These effects are larger in more violent municipalities and among children whose mothers are cohabiting. I employ death and hospitalization records to explore potential mechanisms explaining my results. I show that immediately after the adoption of the lawsalcohol consumption, drugs use, and violent crime in the community and in the households drops. An analysis of comparable laws in the state of Kansas in the United States will complement the study.