IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0016777.html

Using Search Query Surveillance to Monitor Tax Avoidance and Smoking Cessation following the United States' 2009 “SCHIP” Cigarette Tax Increase

Author

Listed:
  • John W Ayers
  • Kurt Ribisl
  • John S Brownstein

Abstract

Smokers can use the web to continue or quit their habit. Online vendors sell reduced or tax-free cigarettes lowering smoking costs, while health advocates use the web to promote cessation. We examined how smokers' tax avoidance and smoking cessation Internet search queries were motivated by the United States' (US) 2009 State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) federal cigarette excise tax increase and two other state specific tax increases. Google keyword searches among residents in a taxed geography (US or US state) were compared to an untaxed geography (Canada) for two years around each tax increase. Search data were normalized to a relative search volume (RSV) scale, where the highest search proportion was labeled 100 with lesser proportions scaled by how they relatively compared to the highest proportion. Changes in RSV were estimated by comparing means during and after the tax increase to means before the tax increase, across taxed and untaxed geographies. The SCHIP tax was associated with an 11.8% (95% confidence interval [95%CI], 5.7 to 17.9; p

Suggested Citation

  • John W Ayers & Kurt Ribisl & John S Brownstein, 2011. "Using Search Query Surveillance to Monitor Tax Avoidance and Smoking Cessation following the United States' 2009 “SCHIP” Cigarette Tax Increase," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(3), pages 1-7, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0016777
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016777
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016777
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016777&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0016777?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nikolaos Askitas & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2009. "Google Econometrics and Unemployment Forecasting," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 55(2), pages 107-120.
    2. Stehr, Mark, 2005. "Cigarette tax avoidance and evasion," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 277-297, March.
    3. Austan Goolsbee & Michael F. Lovenheim & Joel Slemrod, 2010. "Playing with Fire: Cigarettes, Taxes, and Competition from the Internet," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 131-154, February.
    4. West, S.G. & Duan, N. & Pequegnat, W. & Gaist, P. & Des Jarlais, D.C. & Holtgrave, D. & Szapocznik, J. & Fishbein, M. & Rapkin, B. & Clatts, M. & Mullen, P.D., 2008. "Alternatives to the randomized controlled trial," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(8), pages 1359-1366.
    5. Metzger, K.B. & Mostashari, F. & Kerker, B.D., 2005. "Use of pharmacy data to evaluate smoking regulations' impact on sales of nicotine replacement therapies in New York City," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 95(6), pages 1050-1055.
    6. Jeremy Ginsberg & Matthew H. Mohebbi & Rajan S. Patel & Lynnette Brammer & Mark S. Smolinski & Larry Brilliant, 2009. "Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data," Nature, Nature, vol. 457(7232), pages 1012-1014, February.
    7. Kelley Lee, 2008. "Tobacco Control Yields Clear Dividends for Health and Wealth," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(9), pages 1-2, September.
    8. Thomas D. Cook & William R. Shadish & Vivian C. Wong, 2008. "Three conditions under which experiments and observational studies produce comparable causal estimates: New findings from within-study comparisons," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 724-750.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Lucas J Carr & Shira I Dunsiger, 2012. "Search Query Data to Monitor Interest in Behavior Change: Application for Public Health," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(10), pages 1-3, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lesley Chiou & Erich Muehlegger, 2014. "Consumer Response to Cigarette Excise Tax Changes," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 67(3), pages 621-650, September.
    2. Bentzen, Jeanet Sinding, 2021. "In crisis, we pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 541-583.
    3. Liwen Ling & Dabin Zhang & Shanying Chen & Amin W. Mugera, 2020. "Can online search data improve the forecast accuracy of pork price in China?," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 671-686, July.
    4. Götz, Thomas B. & Knetsch, Thomas A., 2019. "Google data in bridge equation models for German GDP," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 45-66.
    5. Cedric Mbanga & Ali F. Darrat & Jung Chul Park, 2019. "Investor sentiment and aggregate stock returns: the role of investor attention," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 397-428, August.
    6. Heather R. Tierney & Bing Pan, 2012. "A poisson regression examination of the relationship between website traffic and search engine queries," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 155-189, October.
    7. Fantazzini, Dean & Toktamysova, Zhamal, 2015. "Forecasting German car sales using Google data and multivariate models," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(PA), pages 97-135.
    8. Andrea Monaco & Adamaria Perrotta & Joseph Mulligan, 2024. "Selecting sensitive web info via conditional probabilities to model economics and financial variables," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 66(1), pages 467-481, January.
    9. Eli Arditi & Eldad Yechiam & Gal Zahavi, 2015. "Association between Stock Market Gains and Losses and Google Searches," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(10), pages 1-12, October.
    10. Helen Rahlff & Ulf Rinne & Hendrik Sonnabend, 2025. "COVID-19, school closures and (cyber)bullying in Germany," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(6), pages 852-865, November.
    11. Jaroslav Pavlicek & Ladislav Kristoufek, 2015. "Nowcasting Unemployment Rates with Google Searches: Evidence from the Visegrad Group Countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(5), pages 1-11, May.
    12. Han Wang & Geng Peng & Benfu Lv, 2018. "Effect of Retail Investor Attention on Chinas A-Share Market Under a Strengthening Financial Regulatory Policy," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 8(10), pages 1274-1297, October.
    13. Park, Sungjun & Kim, Jinsoo, 2018. "The effect of interest in renewable energy on US household electricity consumption: An analysis using Google Trends data," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 1004-1010.
    14. DeCicca, Philip & Kenkel, Donald & Liu, Feng, 2013. "Excise tax avoidance: The case of state cigarette taxes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1130-1141.
    15. Andreea Avramescu & Arkadiusz Wiśniowski, 2021. "Now-casting Romanian migration into the United Kingdom by using Google Search engine data," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 45(40), pages 1219-1254.
    16. Nick McLaren & Rachana Shanbhogue, 2011. "Using internet search data as economic indicators," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 51(2), pages 134-140.
    17. Gutiérrez, Antonio, 2022. "Movilidad urbana y datos de alta frecuencia [Urban mobility and high frequency data]," MPRA Paper 114854, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Nathan, Max & Rosso, Anna, 2015. "Mapping digital businesses with big data: Some early findings from the UK," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(9), pages 1714-1733.
    19. Christian Ben Lakhdar & Nicolas Gérard Vaillant & François-Charles Wolff, 2016. "Does smoke cross the border? Cigarette tax avoidance in France," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(9), pages 1073-1089, December.
    20. Botezat, Alina, 2017. "Austerity plan announcements and the impact on the employees’ wellbeing," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-16.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0016777. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.