Vliv spotřební daně na poptávku po alkoholu – analýza restauračních zařízení na Rakovnicku

The aim of this thesis is to answer the question whether the excise tax affects the demand for alcohol. This issue will be analyzed on a case study of restaurant establishments in Rakovnik. The theoretical section will focus mainly on clarifying the reasons, for the imposition of excise taxes on alcohol. This section will primarily deal with the theory of externalities, as many economists impose that alcohol excise tax can be defended on the grounds that alcohol consumption causes external costs. In this section, I look at addressing externalities through Pigou's taxes, and also address its criticism, which is based mainly on clearly defined property rights (Coase, Block, Rothbard). In the practical part I will attempt to answer the question using the results and outputs from both the hard sources (official statistics available on consumption of alcohol at the time, the financial statements of the restaurants surveyed) and the soft qualitative sources (in the form of my own questionnaire and in-depth interviews with selected respondents). In this way, I will try to conduct a more in depth research of the official data and identify information not readily available (eg. a change in the composition of visitors to restaurants and their consumption habits in response to a price increase of alcohol). The results of this analysis will answer the question of whether an excise tax and its amount does or does not affect the consumption of alcohol in restaurants in Rakovnik.