Rising cigarette prices and rising obesity: Coincidence or unintended consequence?
Abstract
Economists have begun to debate if the rise in cigarette prices in the U.S. in recent decades has contributed to the nation's rise in obesity, reaching conclusions that are surprisingly sensitive to specification. I show that allowing for the effect to occur gradually over several years leads to the conclusion that a rise in cigarette prices is actually associated with a long-run reduction in body mass index and obesity. This result is robust to the different methodologies used in the literature. I also provide evidence that indirect effects on exercise and food consumption may explain the counterintuitive result.Download Info
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Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Health Economics.
Volume (Year): 28 (2009)
Issue (Month): 4 (July)
Pages: 781-798
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Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:28:y:2009:i:4:p:781-798
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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505560
For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Jeroen Loos).
Related research
Keywords: Obesity Weight Smoking Cigarette prices Cigarette taxes;References
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Christopher J. Ruhm, 2010. "Understanding Overeating and Obesity," NBER Working Papers 16149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Courtemanche, Charles, 2008. "Working Yourself to Death? The Relationship Between Work Hours and Obesity," MPRA Paper 25324, University Library of Munich, Germany.
- Courtemanche, Charles & Carden, Art, 2009. "The skinny on big box retailing: Wal-Mart, warehouse clubs, and obesity," MPRA Paper 25326, University Library of Munich, Germany.
- Charles J. Courtemanche & Garth Heutel & Patrick McAlvanah, 2011.
"Impatience, Incentives, and Obesity,"
NBER Working Papers
17483, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Courtemanche, Charles & McAlvanah, Patrick & Heutel, Garth, 2011. "Impatience, Incentives, and Obesity," Working Papers 11-9, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics, revised 28 Sep 2011.
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