IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/v115y2007p447-481.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Private Profits and Public Health: Does Advertising of Smoking Cessation Products Encourage Smokers to Quit?

Author

Listed:
  • Rosemary Avery
  • Donald Kenkel
  • Dean R. Lillard
  • Alan Mathios

Abstract

We study the impact of smoking cessation product advertising. To measure potential exposure, we link survey data on magazine-reading habits and smoking behavior with an archive of print advertisements. We find that smokers who are exposed to more advertising are more likely to attempt to quit and to successfully quit. While some increased quitting involves product purchases, we find that product advertisements also prompt cold turkey quitting. Identifying the causal impact of advertising is difficult because advertisers target consumers. Although reverse causality could bias our estimates upward, our baseline results are not sensitive to a series of checks.

Suggested Citation

  • Rosemary Avery & Donald Kenkel & Dean R. Lillard & Alan Mathios, 2007. "Private Profits and Public Health: Does Advertising of Smoking Cessation Products Encourage Smokers to Quit?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115, pages 447-481.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:115:y:2007:p:447-481
    DOI: 10.1086/520065
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/520065
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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, September.
    2. Lillard, Dean R. & Plassmann, Vandana & Kenkel, Donald & Mathios, Alan, 2007. "Who kicks the habit and how they do it: Socioeconomic differences across methods of quitting smoking in the USA," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(12), pages 2504-2519, June.
    3. Toshiaki Iizuka & Ginger Zhe Jin, 2005. "Drug Advertising and Health Habit," NBER Working Papers 11770, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Pauline M. Ippolito & Alan D. Mathios, 1990. "Information, Advertising and Health Choices: A Study of the Cereal Market," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(3), pages 459-480, Autumn.
    5. W. Kip Viscusi, 1995. "Cigarette Taxation and the Social Consequences of Smoking," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 9, pages 51-102, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    7. Patrick, D.L. & Cheadle, A. & Thompson, D.C. & Diehr, P. & Koepsell, T. & Kinne, S., 1994. "The validity of self-reported smoking: A review and meta-analysis," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 84(7), pages 1086-1093.
    8. Rosenthal Meredith B. & Berndt Ernst R. & Donohue Julie M. & Epstein Arnold M. & Frank Richard G., 2003. "Demand Effects of Recent Changes in Prescription Drug Promotion," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-28, January.
    9. Ippolito, Pauline M & Mathios, Alan D, 1995. "Information and Advertising: The Case of Fat Consumption in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 91-95, May.
    10. Andrew M. Jones, 2012. "health econometrics," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics,, Palgrave Macmillan.
    11. Mendez, D. & Warner, K.E., 2000. "Smoking prevalence in 2010: Why the healthy people goal is unattainable," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 90(3), pages 401-403.
    12. John E. Calfee & Clifford Winston & Randolph Stempski, 2002. "Direct-to-Consumer Advertising and the Demand for Cholesterol-Reducing Drugs," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(S2), pages 673-690.
    13. Davina C. Ling & Ernst R. Berndt & Margaret K. Kyle, 2002. "Deregulating Direct-to-Consumer Marketing of Prescription Drugs: Effects on Prescription and Over-the-Counter Product Sales," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(S2), pages 691-723.
    14. Jones, Andrew M., 1999. "Adjustment costs, withdrawal effects, and cigarette addiction," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 125-137, January.
    15. Rosemary Avery & Donald Kenkel & Dean Lillard & Alan Mathios, 2007. "Regulating advertisements: the case of smoking cessation products," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 185-208, April.
    16. Becker, Gary S & Murphy, Kevin M, 1988. "A Theory of Rational Addiction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(4), pages 675-700, August.
    17. Tauras, John A. & Chaloupka, Frank J. & Emery, Sherry, 2005. "The impact of advertising on nicotine replacement therapy demand," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(10), pages 2351-2358, May.
    18. 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.
    19. Meredith B. Rosenthal & Ernst R. Berndt & Julie M. Donohue & Arnold M. Epstein & Richard G. Frank, 2003. "Demand Effects of Recent Changes in Prescription Drug Promotion," NBER Chapters, in: Frontiers in Health Policy Research, Volume 6, pages 1-26, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. W. David Bradford & Andrew N. Kleit, 2006. "Direct to Consumer Advertising," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.),The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, chapter 29, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    21. Michael P. Murray, 2006. "Avoiding Invalid Instruments and Coping with Weak Instruments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 111-132, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Private Profits and Public Health: Does Advertising of Smoking Cessation Products Encourage Smokers to Quit? (JPE 2007) in ReplicationWiki

    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:ucp:jpolec:v:115:y:2007:p:447-481. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Journals Division). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.