Evidence and Evaluation: The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984

When considering federal legislation to encourage states to raise the drinking age to twenty-one, public officials faced a common problem: assessing the efficacy of a proposed policy change from evidence that is deficient in quality and quantity. These deficiencies mandated a discerning evaluation of the evidence, but instead the opposite occurred: a consensus that inflated, rather than dampened, the overly-optimistic estimates of existing studies. This outcome, which is not limited to this legislation, can be explained by three structural factors, organizational, intellectual, and process, which can be ameliorated to some extent by methodological and institutional reforms.

Keywords: drunk driving, traffic safety legislation, policy analysis

JEL Classification: I18, K14, N42

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Grant, Darren P., Evidence and Evaluation: The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (September 13, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1926940 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1926940

Darren P. Grant (Contact Author)

Sam Houston State University - College of Business Administration - Department of Economics and International Business ( email )

SHSU Box 2118
Huntsville, TX 77341-2118
United States
936-294-4324 (Phone)