Outside of the policy arena, economists have analyzed alcohol consumption in the context of stretching the standard model of consumer choice to include intertemporal effects and social influence. Nonetheless, perhaps the most important contribution by economists has been the repeated demonstration that there is nothing unusual about alcohol in at least one essential respect: consumers drink les ethanol when alcohol-beverage prices are increased. Inportant econometric challenges remain, including the search for a satisfactory resolution to the conflicting results on the effect of price changes on consumption by consumers who tend to drink heavily. There are also unresolved puzzles about the relationship between drinking and productivity; even after controlling for a variety of other characteristics, drinkers tend to have higher earnings than abstainers, and women's earnings tend to increase with alcohol consumption