title: The Demand for Cigarettes as Derived from the Demand for Weight Loss: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation.
abstract: This paper offers an economic model of smoking and body weight and provides new empirical evidence on the extent to which the demand for cigarettes is derived from the demand for weight loss. In the model, smoking causes weight loss in addition to having direct utility benefits and direct health consequences. It predicts that some individuals smoke for weight loss and that the practice is more common among those who consider themselves overweight and those who experience greater disutility from excess weight. We test these hypotheses using nationally representative data in which adolescents are directly asked whether they smoke to control their weight. We find that, among teenagers who smoke frequently, 46% of girls and 30% of boys are smoking in part to control their weight. As predicted by the model, this practice is significantly more common among those who describe themselves as too fat and among groups that tend to experience greater disutility from obesity. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for tax policy; specifically, the demand for cigarettes is less price elastic among those who smoke for weight loss, all else being equal. Public health efforts to reduce smoking initiation and encourage cessation may wish to design campaigns to alter the derived nature of cigarette demand, especially among adolescent girls.
authors.affiliation: Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.|Department of Economics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.|School of Economics, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: John
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4805-9883
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cawley
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: Davide
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dragone
authors.affiliation: School of Economics, Finance, and Management, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Von Hinke Kessler Scholder
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017059:Models, Econometric; D050177:Overweight / Q000517:prevention & control; D012907:Smoking / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000191:economics; D062789:Tobacco Products / Q000191:economics; D015431:Weight Loss / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: BMI; cigarettes; derived demand; obesity; price elasticity; smoking; weight