IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1849.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Taxes, Cigarette Consumption and Smoking Intensity

Author

Listed:
  • Adda, Jérôme

    (Bocconi University)

  • Cornaglia, Francesca

    (Queen Mary, University of London)

Abstract

This paper analyses the compensatory behavior of smokers. Exploiting data on cotinine concentration – a metabolite of nicotine – measured in a large population of smokers over time, we show that smokers compensate tax hikes by extracting more nicotine per cigarette. Our study makes two important contributions. First, as smoking more intensively a given cigarette is detrimental to health, our results question the usefulness of tax increases. Second, we develop a model of rational addiction where agents can also adjust their intensity of smoking and we show that the previous empirical results suffer from severe estimation biases.

Suggested Citation

  • Adda, Jérôme & Cornaglia, Francesca, 2005. "Taxes, Cigarette Consumption and Smoking Intensity," IZA Discussion Papers 1849, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1849
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1849.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jerome Adda & Francesca Cornaglia, 2005. "The effects of taxes and bans on passive smoking," CeMMAP working papers CWP20/05, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    2. Jonathan Gruber & Botond Köszegi, 2001. "Is Addiction "Rational"? Theory and Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1261-1303.
    3. Chaloupka, Frank, 1991. "Rational Addictive Behavior and Cigarette Smoking," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 722-742, August.
    4. Becker, Gary S & Grossman, Michael & Murphy, Kevin M, 1994. "An Empirical Analysis of Cigarette Addiction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 396-418, June.
    5. M.C. Farrelly & C.T. Nimsch & A. Hyland & M. Cummings, 2004. "The effects of higher cigarette prices on tar and nicotine consumption in a cohort of adult smokers," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 49-58, January.
    6. Harris, Jeffrey E, 1980. "Taxing Tar and Nicotine," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 300-311, June.
    7. William N. Evans & Matthew C. Farrelly, 1998. "The Compensating Behavior of Smokers: Taxes, Tar, and Nicotine," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(3), pages 578-595, Autumn.
    8. Chaloupka, Frank J. & Warner, Kenneth E., 2000. "The economics of smoking," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 29, pages 1539-1627, Elsevier.
    9. Philip DeCicca & Donald Kenkel & Alan Mathios, 2002. "Putting Out the Fires: Will Higher Taxes Reduce the Onset of Youth Smoking?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(1), pages 144-169, February.
    10. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Hong Liu & John A. Rizzo & Qi Sun & Fang Wu, 2015. "How Do Smokers Respond to Cigarette Taxes? Evidence from China's Cigarette Industry," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(10), pages 1314-1330, October.
    2. Sijbren Cnossen, 2006. "Alcohol taxation and regulation in the European Union," CPB Discussion Paper 76.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    3. Sijbren Cnossen & D. Forrest & S. Smith, 2009. "Taxation and regulation of smoking, drinking and gambling in the European Union," CPB Special Publication 76.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    4. Mark Coppejans & Donna Gilleskie & Holger Sieg & Koleman Strumpf, 2007. "Consumer Demand under Price Uncertainty: Empirical Evidence from the Market for Cigarettes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(3), pages 510-521, August.
    5. Charles L. Baum, 2009. "The effects of cigarette costs on BMI and obesity," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 3-19, January.
    6. Michael Grossman, 2005. "Individual Behaviours and Substance Use: The Role of Price," Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research, in: Substance Use: Individual Behaviour, Social Interactions, Markets and Politics, pages 15-39, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    7. Erik Nesson, 2017. "Heterogeneity in Smokers' Responses to Tobacco Control Policies," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(2), pages 206-225, February.
    8. Natsuko Iwasaki & Carol Horton Tremblay & Victor J. Tremblay, 2006. "Advertising Restrictions And Cigarette Smoking: Evidence From Myopic And Rational Addiction Models," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 24(3), pages 370-381, July.
    9. Göhlmann, Silja & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2008. "Smoking in Germany: Stylized Facts, Behavioral Models, and Health Policy," Ruhr Economic Papers 64, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    10. Hammar, Henrik & Carlsson, Fredrik, 2001. "Smokers' Decisions To Quit Smoking," Working Papers in Economics 59, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    11. Ciccarelli, Carlo & Giamboni, Luigi & Waldmann, Robert, 2007. "Cigarette smoking, pregnancy, forward looking behavior and dynamic inconsistency," MPRA Paper 8878, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Anne Bretteville-Jensen, 2006. "Drug Demand – Initiation, Continuation and Quitting," De Economist, Springer, vol. 154(4), pages 491-516, December.
    13. Peter Arcidiacono & Holger Sieg & Frank Sloan, 2007. "Living Rationally Under The Volcano? An Empirical Analysis Of Heavy Drinking And Smoking," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(1), pages 37-65, February.
    14. repec:zbw:rwirep:0064 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Dragone, Davide & Raggi, Davide, 2021. "Resolving the milk addiction paradox," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    16. Bertrand Crettez & Régis Deloche, 2021. "Time-inconsistent preferences and the minimum legal tobacco consuming age," Rationality and Society, , vol. 33(2), pages 176-195, May.
    17. Johanna Catherine MacLean & Asia Sikora Kessler & Donald S. Kenkel, 2016. "Cigarette Taxes and Older Adult Smoking: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 424-438, April.
    18. Jonathan Gruber, 2001. "Tobacco at the Crossroads: The Past and Future of Smoking Regulation in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 193-212, Spring.
    19. Peter Arcidiacono, Holger Sieg, Frank Sloan, 2001. "Living Rationally Under the Volcano? Heavy Drinking and Smoking Among the Elderly," Computing in Economics and Finance 2001 207, Society for Computational Economics.
    20. Donna B. Gilleskie & Koleman S. Strumpf, 2005. "The Behavioral Dynamics of Youth Smoking," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(4), pages 822-866.
    21. Jérôme Adda & Francesca Cornaglia, 2010. "The Effect of Bans and Taxes on Passive Smoking," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 1-32, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    smoking; cigarettes; addiction; taxes;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Rookverbod in Wikipedia Dutch

    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:iza:izadps:dp1849. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.