Heterogeneity in Smokers’ Responses to Tobacco Control Policies

39 Pages Posted: 1 Feb 2015 Last revised: 30 Apr 2016

See all articles by Erik Nesson

Erik Nesson

Ball State University - Department of Economics

Date Written: September 6, 2015

Abstract

This paper uses unconditional quantile regression to estimate whether smokers’ responses to tobacco control policies change across the distribution of smoking levels. I measure smoking behavior with the number of cigarettes smoked per day and also with serum cotinine levels, a continuous biomarker of nicotine exposure, using individual-level repeated cross-section data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. I find that the cigarette taxes lead to reductions in both the number of cigarettes smoked per day and in smokers’ cotinine levels. These reductions are most pronounced in the middle quantiles of both distributions in terms of marginal effects but most pronounced in the lower quantiles in terms of tax elasticities. I do not find that higher cigarette taxes lead to statistically significant changes in the amount of nicotine smokers ingest from each cigarette.

Keywords: cigarette smoking; cigarette taxes; compensating behavior; cotinine; quantile regression

JEL Classification: D12, I12, I18

Suggested Citation

Nesson, Erik, Heterogeneity in Smokers’ Responses to Tobacco Control Policies (September 6, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2558140 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2558140

Erik Nesson (Contact Author)

Ball State University - Department of Economics ( email )

Muncie, IN 47306-0340
United States

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