Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Cost-benefit analysis involving addictive goods: contingent valuation to estimate willingness-to-pay for smoking cessation

Contents:

Author Info

  • David L. Weimer

    (University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA)

  • Aidan R. Vining

    (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada)

  • Randall K. Thomas

    (Harris Interactive, Rochester, NY, USA)

Abstract

The valuation of changes in consumption of addictive goods resulting from policy interventions presents a challenge for cost-benefit analysts. Consumer surplus losses from reduced consumption of addictive goods that are measured relative to market demand schedules overestimate the social cost of cessation interventions. This article seeks to show that consumer surplus losses measured using a non-addicted demand schedule provide a better assessment of social cost. Specifically, (1) it develops an addiction model that permits an estimate of the smoker's compensating variation for the elimination of addiction; (2) it employs a contingent valuation survey of current smokers to estimate their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a treatment that would eliminate addiction; (3) it uses the estimate of WTP from the survey to calculate the fraction of consumer surplus that should be viewed as consumer value; and (4) it provides an estimate of this fraction. The exercise suggests that, as a tentative first and rough rule-of-thumb, only about 75% of the loss of the conventionally measured consumer surplus should be counted as social cost for policies that reduce the consumption of cigarettes. Additional research to estimate this important rule-of-thumb is desirable to address the various caveats relevant to this study. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/hec.1365
File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Article provided by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. in its journal Health Economics.

Volume (Year): 18 (2009)
Issue (Month): 2 ()
Pages: 181-202

as in new window
Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:2:p:181-202

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749

Related research

Keywords:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Hammar, Henrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2001. "The Value Of Risk - Free Cigarettes - Do Smokers Underestimate The Risk?," Working Papers in Economics 61, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
  2. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
  3. Frank A. Sloan & Jan Ostermann & Christopher Conover & Donald H. Taylor, Jr. & Gabriel Picone, 2006. "The Price of Smoking," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262693453.
  4. Glied, Sherry, 2002. "Youth tobacco control: reconciling theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 117-135, January.
  5. Werner, Megan, 1999. "Allowing for Zeros in Dichotomous-Choice Contingent-Valuation Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 17(4), pages 479-86, October.
  6. Gary S. Becker & Michael Grossman & Kevin M. Murphy, 1994. "An Empirical Analysis of Cigarette Addiction," NBER Working Papers 3322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Laux, Fritz L., 2000. "Addiction as a market failure: using rational addiction results to justify tobacco regulation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 421-437, July.
  8. A Diener & B O'Brien & A Gafni, 1997. "Health Care Contingent Valuation Studies: A review and classification of the literature," Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis Working Paper Series 1997-07, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis (CHEPA), McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
  9. Frank J. Chaloupka & Kenneth E. Warner, 1999. "The Economics of Smoking," NBER Working Papers 7047, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. William N. Evans & Jeanne S. Ringel & Diana Stech, 1999. "Tobacco Taxes and Public Policy to Discourage Smoking," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, volume 13, pages 1-56 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy, 1986. "A Theory of Rational Addiction," University of Chicago - George G. Stigler Center for Study of Economy and State 41, Chicago - Center for Study of Economy and State.
  12. Christopher Auld & Paul Grootendorst, 2001. "An Empirical Analysis of Milk Addiction," Working Papers 2001-17, Department of Economics, University of Calgary, revised 05 Dec 2001.
  13. Suranovic, Steven M. & Goldfarb, Robert S. & Leonard, Thomas C., 1999. "An economic theory of cigarette addiction," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-29, January.
  14. Saffer, Henry & Grossman, Michael, 1987. "Drinking Age Laws and Highway Mortality Rates: Cause and Effect," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 25(3), pages 403-17, July.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Scott Farrow & Judith Shinogle, 2010. "Are There Net State Social Benefits or Costs from Legalizing Slot Machine Gambling?," UMBC Economics Department Working Papers 10-128, UMBC Department of Economics.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:2:p:181-202

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing) or (Christopher F. Baum).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.