Suppose one county in Missouri decides it wants to reduce alcohol consumption, so the county passes a law that raises the price of a bottle of beer by $1. As a result, people drive to other counties to drink alcohol, which results in an increase in drunk driving. This illustrates the principle that people respond to incentives.

True or False?

An incentive is a punishment or a reward that induces someone (or the general public) to act a certain way. Many times incentives work because people compare costs and benefits. For example, in Europe gas prices are extremely high due basically to high taxes on gas. That is why most cars sold in Europe are much smaller and fuel efficient than those sold in the US were taxes on gas are usually much lower so the gas price is also much lower. The incentive is saving money even though most European cars aren´t as comfortable as those sold in the US.

In this specific question, those who wanted to drink beer will probably calculate how many beers they need to buy or drink to offset the expenses of going to the next county to buy beer. Probably no one will travel several miles just to buy 1 beer, but at some amount of beer the math will make you drive. Besides losing business in your own county, another collateral damage is the rise in drunk driving.