cepr.org
Raising legal drinking ages: An opportunity to improve European educational outcomes
Teenage drinking remains widespread in Europe. To address concerns about its negative effects on health and cognition, many European countries have raised their minimum legal drinking age from 16 to 18 in recent decades. This column reports on evidence from Spain, where regions increased the minimum age at different times, which shows that the higher minimum age reduced binge drinking and improved performance in academic tests. The findings suggest that reducing teenage alcohol consumption represents a significant opportunity to improve educational outcomes in Europe.