Yuval calls attention to the latest issue of National Affairs, but National Affairs isn’t just a quarterly journal. There’s also a daily website and it features a roundup of academic research. Friday’s edition links to a working paper published by the American Association of Wine Economists. First of all, it’s delightful to know that there is such a thing as the AAWE. I wish there was also an American Association of Beer Economists, but a quick Google search suggests that there isn’t. Maybe it’s because they’d never get anything done. At any rate, the AAWE paper contends that monogamous societies consume a lot more booze than polygamous societies. Make of that what you will. It reminds me of an old W.C. Fields joke: “A woman drove me to drink and I never even had the courtesy to thank her.”