title: The economic impact of state cigarette taxes and smoke-free air policies on convenience stores.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether increasing state cigarette taxes and/or enacting stronger smoke-free air (SFA) policies have negative impact on convenience store density in a state, a proxy that is determined by store openings and closings, which reflects store profits.
  
  
  METHODS
  State-level business count estimates for convenience stores for 50 states and District of Columbia from 1997 to 2009 were analysed using two-way fixed effects regression techniques that control for state-specific and year-specific determinants of convenience store density. The impact of tax and SFA policies was examined using a quasi-experimental research design that exploits changes in cigarette taxes and SFA policies within a state over time.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Taxes are found to be uncorrelated with the density of combined convenience stores and gas stations in a state. Taxes are positively correlated with the density of convenience stores; however, the magnitude of this correlation is small, with a 10% increase in state cigarette taxes associated with a 0.19% (p<0.05) increase in the number of convenience stores per million people in a state. State-level SFA policies do not correlate with convenience store density in a state, regardless whether gas stations were included. These results are robust across different model specifications. In addition, they are robust with regard to the inclusion/exclusion of other state-level tobacco control measures and gasoline prices.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Contrary to tobacco industry and related organisations' claims, higher cigarette taxes and stronger SFA policies do not negatively affect convenience stores.
authors: Health Policy Center, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1747 West Roosevelt Road, Room 422, Chicago, IL 60608, USA. jhuang12@uic.edu
authors: Jidong
authors: J
authors: Huang
authors: Frank J
authors: FJ
authors: Chaloupka
mesh_terms: D005742:Gasoline / Q000191:economics; D006291:Health Policy / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D006801:Humans; D058012:Small Business / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012907:Smoking / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D013219:State Government; D013660:Taxes / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D062789:Tobacco Products / Q000191:economics*; D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D005742:Gasoline; D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution