title: Heterogeneity in Smokers' Responses to Tobacco Control Policies.
abstract: This paper uses unconditional quantile regression to estimate whether smokers' responses to tobacco control policies change across the distribution of smoking levels. I measure smoking behavior with the number of cigarettes smoked per day and also with serum cotinine levels, a continuous biomarker of nicotine exposure, using individual-level repeated cross-section data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. I find that the cigarette taxes lead to reductions in both the number of cigarettes smoked per day and in smokers' cotinine levels. These reductions are most pronounced in the middle quantiles of both distributions in terms of marginal effects, but most pronounced in the lower quantiles in terms of tax elasticities. I do not find that higher cigarette taxes lead to statistically significant changes in the amount of nicotine smokers ingest from each cigarette. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Miller College of Business, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, USA.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Nesson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior; D000073865:Cigarette Smoking / Q000191:economics*; D003367:Cotinine / Q000097:blood; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D000074285:Smokers / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology; D016540:Smoking Cessation; D013660:Taxes / Q000191:economics*
chemical_list: D003367:Cotinine
keywords: cigarette smoking; cigarette taxes; compensating behavior; cotinine; quantile regression