Journal of Wine Economics

Table of Contents - May 2012 - Volume 7, Issue 01  

Research Article

Public Finance, Special Interests, and Direct Wine Shipping Laws in the United States*

Omer Gokcekusa1 c1 and Dennis Nottebauma2

a1 Omer Gokcekus: John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, USA, omer.gokcekus@shu.edu

a2 Dennis Nottebaum: Centre for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW), University of Münster, Germany, nottebaum@wwu.de

Abstract

This study develops thirteen criteria to detail diverging direct shipping laws of the U.S. states. It also investigates why some states have prohibitive laws by utilizing a logit regression model. Regression results provide strong support for public finance and special interest arguments: It appears that states concerned about incurring losses in tax revenues, that is, that are heavily dependent on federal aid and have low state revenues, and protecting the wholesalers and retailers that benefit from the three-tier system (at the expense of wineries and wine drinkers) are most likely to have a prohibitive law. (JEL Classification: D72, H71, Q18)

Correspondence:

c1 For all correspondence: Omer Gokcekus, John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ 07079, USA; tel.: 973-313-6272, fax: 973-275-2519, e-mail: omer.gokcekus@shu.edu

Footnotes

* The authors thank Andrew Fargnoli, Adam Godet, Justin Myzie, Ryan Kane, Nicolas Reinhart, Edward Tower, and Daniel Verderosa, participants in the 2008 American Association of Wine Economists Meeting in Portland, two anonymous referees, and Karl Storchmann for their comments and suggestions.