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Demand for Marijuana, Alcohol and Tobacco: Participation, Levels of Consumption and Cross‐equation Correlations *
Author(s) -
ZHAO XUEYAN,
HARRIS MARK N.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
economic record
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.365
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1475-4932
pISSN - 0013-0249
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4932.2004.00197.x
Subject(s) - unobservable , multivariate probit model , econometrics , consumption (sociology) , alcohol consumption , multivariate statistics , probit model , ordered probit , statistics , correlation , economics , psychology , alcohol , mathematics , sociology , social science , biochemistry , chemistry , geometry
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 characteristics, 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.