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Title: Essays on Drug and Alcohol Policies in the United States
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Crouch, Randall
Essays on Drug and Alcohol Policies in the United States
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Houston, 2015
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Drug Use; Geocoded Data; Pearlin Mastery Scale; Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (see Self-Esteem); Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control); Self-Esteem; State-Level Data/Policy

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

In the first essay, I analyze the effect of minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) laws on non-cognitive skills. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) is used to investigate the effect of changes in MLDA on the onset of regular drinking, self-esteem and self-control. Surprisingly, I find that a legal drinking environment is associated with an increase in self-esteem for females in the short-run and long-run. Then, I test several possible channels through which self-esteem may be indirectly affected by the MLDA. These channels include alcohol and drug use, marriage, sex and childbirth. Although the MLDA has a significant effect on some of these channels for females, using the channels as controls in the self-esteem analysis does not affect the magnitude or significance of the effect of the MLDA on female self-esteem.
Bibliography Citation
Crouch, Randall. Essays on Drug and Alcohol Policies in the United States. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Houston, 2015.