Conclusion

Our study largely confirms that drinking and eating habits observable at traditional German beerfests, like the Oktoberfest, are transferable to a crosscountry level without loss of generality. We test variables categorized as nutrition habits, economics and demographics in a linear regression panel setting, each individually and according to various groups, as well as a kitchen sink approach for both models. The underlying dataset is an unbalanced panel of 169 countries with annual time-series up to 52 years. The results are generally in line with what has been reported in previous studies. We find that countries with a strong preference for meat, potatoes and egg tend to grab a jug more often. In contrast, nations with a desire for wine and cheese drink less beer. Additionally, we show beer consumption to be higher for people living in cities and aged between 15 and 64 years. Mentioned coefficients are proven to be statistically significant at 1% levels.

The implications of this study are multifold. First of all, the methodological adjustment of jointly considering economic, demographic and nutrition habits, yields empirically robust insight on the relation of beer consumption towards these factors. Furthermore, regarding the economic and demographic factors, we show that an increase in beer consumption is positively related to the level of urbanization in a country and working age group (from 15 to 64 years). With respect to the degree of urbanization, the UN has projected that 68% of the world population will be living in cities (urban areas) by 2050. As such, we can expect beer consumption to further grow on a global level; accompanied by health implications on a personal level and higher costs for national health services in general. On the other hand, this provides a positive outlook for the beer industry with respect to sales, where markets with a fast increase in urbanization should be targeted.

As an area of further research, we suggest to evaluate our findings on a regional basis. Especially within large countries like the US, Canada or Germany regional patterns might vary and not portrait a homogeneous picture. Furthermore, it would be interesting to look deeper into the causality between urbanization and alcohol consumption and the socializing component associated with it. As this study builds on the change in beer consumption rather than the level – for statistical reasons – we cannot further evaluate whether the baseline value in beer consumption between rural and urban areas has an impact on the findings. However, given the increase in urbanization such causalities of alcohol consumption can be interesting both for the beverage industry and even more so for national health services, as previously touched upon.