Résumé
This article aims to provide a better understanding of the impact of heavy drinkers on the alcohol industry s profitability. At first glance, heavy drinking appears to improve alcohol s sales leading to an increase of profit. However, heavy drinking also involves fatal injuries and constitutes a shortfall for the industry. In this paper, we explore coexistence of these two forces through an epidemic model of alcohol use distinguishing light and heavy drinkers (LH model). We find that there exists a level of alcohol consumption beyond which heavy drinkers represent a loss of profit for the alcohol industry. We calibrate our model with U.S. data for 2011 and we estimate that this threshold should be between 10.22 and 10.80 drinks per heavy drinking occasion. The implication of our result is twofold: the alcohol industry should set up more effective actions against the heaviest consumers, and consequently genuine collaborations with public authorities could exist for this fringe of population.