Public policy and some-day smoking among adults

While much is known about the impact of public policy on current cigarette smoking among adults, very little is known about the determinants of some-day smoking. This paper investigates the impact of cigarette prices, clean indoor air laws, and other socioeconomic factors on adult cigarette demand. Special emphasis is placed on examining the determinants of some-day smoking among adults. The estimates from this study clearly indicate that increasing the price of cigarettes, will decrease the number of people who currently smoke, will decrease the number of every-day smokers, and will decrease the number of cigarettes smoked on average among some-day smokers. Finally, clean indoor air laws are found to have a limited impact on current and some-day smoking.policy, price, smoking, some-day

The Transition to Smoking Cessation: Evidence from Multiple Failure Duration Analysis

While much is known about the impacts prices and tobacco control policies have on smoking participation and frequency of cigarette use, little is known about their impacts on smoking cessation. This paper addresses the dynamics of smoking cessation using longitudinal data on young adults from the Monitoring the Future Surveys. Site-specific prices and several measures of clean indoor air restrictions are added to the survey data. Both parametric and semi-parametric duration models are used to model multiple cessation attempts of young adults. The estimates indicate that increases in the price of cigarettes increase the probability of initial smoking cessation as well as subsequent cessation for those individuals who are unable to remain smoke- free after at least one prior cessation attempt. The average price elasticity of cessation is 0.343. In addition, stronger restrictions on smoking in private worksites and public places other than restaurants increase the probability of young adult smoking cessation.

An Empirical Analysis of Adult Cigarette Demand

This paper examines the magnitude of prediction bias when employing a traditional two-part model of adult cigarette demand. In particular, this paper is the first econometric study to investigate the bias associated with naively assuming that error retransformation is homoscedastic in price. The traditional two part model that is estimated in this paper models the propensity to smoke and the intensity of smoking separately. A modified two-part model that allows the error retransformation to be heteroscedastic in price is estimated. The results from this research imply that the price of cigarettes is a very important determinant of adult cigarette demand. The estimates imply that policies to increase the price of cigarettes will reduce not only prevalence of smoking, but will also decrease the number of cigarettes smoked by smokers. However, the price coefficients obtained from the conditional demand equations are biased away from zero when using the traditional log-transformed dependent variable. The price elasticities are biased. A generalized linear model yielded conditional price elasticities less than one-half of those obtained using the traditional method.

The Impact of Physician Intervention and Tobacco Control Policies on Average Daily Cigarette Consumption Among Adult Smokers

Physicians' advice to stop smoking has been found to increase smoking cessation rates in controlled clinical trials. However, these finding may not be applicable under real world conditions. This paper investigates the impact of physicians' advice and tobacco control policies on conditional cigarette demand among adults employing non-experimental data. Because the data is non-experimental, the variable reflect physician advice to stop smoking and cigarette consumption are likely to be endogenous. We implement a three stage least squares regression technique designed to take account the joint determination of physician advice and cigarette smoking. The results from these models imply that smokers that received advice from their physician to quit smoking will decrease their average daily consumption by between 5-6 cigarettes per day as compared to smoker who do not receive advice. This result implies that physicians' advice is effective in curtailing smoking in real world settings. Other policies that were found to decrease average smoking by smokers include: the real price of cigarettes and clean indoor air laws.

The Demand for Nicotine Replacement Therapies

This paper is the first econometric study to examine the determinants of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) demand. Pooled cross-sectional time-series scanner-based data for 50 major metropolitan markets in the United States covering the period between the second quarter 1996 and the third quarter 1999 are used in the analysis. Fixed-effects modeling is employed to assess the impact of NRT prices, cigarette prices, and other determinants on NRT demand. The estimates indicate that decreases in the price of NRT and increases in the price of cigarettes would lead to substantial increases in per-capita sales of NRT products. The average own-price elasticity of demand for Nicoderm CQ, Nicorette, and Nicotrol is -1.4, -1.5, and -1.1 respectively. The average cross-price elasticity of demand for Nicoderm CQ and Nicorette is 0.68 and 0.81 respectively.

Determinants of Smoking Cessation: An Analysis of Young Adult Men and Women

Substantial econometric efforts have been devoted to examining the impacts prices and tobacco control policies have on smoking propensity and intensity. However, little is known about the effects prices, smoking restrictions, and other influences have on smoking cessation. This paper uses longitudinal data from the Monitoring the Future Surveys, augmented with cigarette price and policy-related measures to estimate smoking cessation equations for young adult males and females separately. The estimates clearly indicate that increases in cigarette prices would lead a significant number of young adults to quit smoking. In addition, policies restricting smoking in private worksites increase the probability of smoking cessation among employed young adult females.

Effects of Price and Access Laws on Teenage Smoking Initiation: A National Longitudinal Analysis

Over the past three decades a significant amount of economic research has established that increasing cigarette prices reduces cigarette smoking among both adults and adolescents. The consensus estimates for the price elasticity of adult demand from these studies fall in a narrow range of 0.3 to 0.5, suggesting that a 10% increase in the price of cigarettes would decrease adult consumption by 3%-5%. A smaller literature on youth responsiveness to cigarette prices has also emerged. A majority of these studies concluded that youth are up to three times as responsive to price as are adults. Only four econometric studies have attempted to model youth and young adult smoking initiation decisions. All four studies concluded that cigarette prices (or cigarette excise taxes) are insignificant determinants of smoking initiation. This study addresses the limitations of the previous studies on smoking initiation and examines the impact of cigarette prices and youth access laws on adolescent smoking initiation. Nationally representative longitudinal surveys of 8th and 10th graders as part of the Monitoring the Future project are employed in the analysis. State-specific prices and several measures of youth access restrictions are added to the survey data. Discrete-time hazard methods are used to model the probability of initiation. Contradicting the results of the four previous studies on smoking initiation, the results of this study clearly indicate that increases in the price of cigarettes would significantly reduce the number of adolescents who start smoking. The results are mixed with respect to youth access restrictions.

Price, Clean Indoor Air, and Cigarette Smoking: Evidence from the Longitudinal Data for Young Adults

The upward trend in cigarette smoking among teenagers throughout the 1990's has spurred a great deal of interest on how to discourage young people from smoking. This paper attempts to inform policy makers by providing evidence on the effects cigarette prices (which can be increased through cigarette excise taxes) and restrictions on smoking in public places and private worksites have on the use of cigarettes by young adults. Data on cigarette use are taken from the 1976 through 1993 surveys of high school seniors as part of the Monitoring the Future program. Seven follow-ups are conducted on each senior class and therefore each individual is sampled up to eight times. Site-specific data on cigarette prices and clean indoor air laws are added to the survey data. Individual fixed effects methods are used to estimate smoking participation and conditional demand equations. The results indicate that increases in cigarette prices would lead to significant reductions in both the number of people smoking and the frequency with which individuals smoke. The estimated overall average price elasticity of demand is -0.791. In addition, restrictions on smoking in public places and private worksites are found to be effective in reducing both the intensity and the propensity to smoke.

Cigarette Excise Taxation: The Impact of Tax Structure on Prices, Revenues, and Cigarette Smoking

The main purpose of this study is to provide empirical evidence on the effects of the cigarette excise tax structure on three outcomes: cigarette prices, government revenues, and cigarette consumption. We composed cross-sectional time-series data for 21 EU countries from year 1998 to 2007 from various data resources. We provide strong evidence that the price gap between premium and low-priced brands is larger in countries with a greater share of ad valorem tax. A 10-percent raise in the share of ad valorem tax in total excise tax leads to about a 4 to 5 percent increase in the price gap, with a smaller impact in more concentrated markets. Our estimates confirm that greater instability of government tax revenues from cigarette excise taxes can be attributed to greater reliance on the ad valorem tax and such instability increases with the growth of manufacturers' market power. We also find that greater reliance on a specific tax has greater impact on cigarette smoking, but the impact diminishes with the growth of manufacturers' market power.

Public Policy and Youth Smokeless Tobacco Use

While much is known about the effects of prices and tobacco control policies on cigarette smoking, relatively little is known about their impact on smokeless tobacco use. This paper addresses these issues using data on smokeless tobacco use by adolescent males taken from the 1992, 1993, and 1994 Monitoring the Future Surveys. Site-specific smokeless tobacco tax data and several measures of limits on youth access to tobacco products are added to the survey data. Ordered probit methods are used to examine the impact of prices and tobacco control policies on the frequency of smokeless tobacco use among young males. Comparable two-part models are estimated for participation in smokeless tobacco use and for conditional smokeless tobacco demand. The estimates indicate that increases in smokeless tobacco taxes would lead to significant reductions in both the number of young men using smokeless tobacco and in the frequency of smokeless tobacco use. The average estimated price elasticity of smokeless tobacco participation for adolescent males is -0.40, while the overall average estimated price elasticity of demand is -0.65. In addition, strong limits on youth access to smokeless tobacco products are found to be effective in reducing both participation in smokeless tobacco use and the frequency of smokeless tobacco use by young males.