Determinants of Per Capita Alcohol Consumption in Africa: A Cross-section Approach

Abstract

North African countries. The descriptive data analysis is complemented with a formal quantitative cross-sectional analysis that includes 51 African countries that have data on alcohol consumption. The results show that economic, demographic and religious factors are statistically significant in explaining the patterns of alcohol consumption per capita. Given that the coefficients for price responsiveness are very low, there is considerable room for the use of taxation instruments to earn some revenue rather than to reduce alcohol consumption. By extension, the low coefficients for price and GDP/capita serve to explain the rapid rise of black markets for alcohol observed in both South Africa and Namibia during the Covid-19 lockdown.