Is Smoking Behavior Culturally Determined?: Evidence from British Immigrants

Rebekka Christopoulou and Dean R. Lillard

No 1265, Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: We exploit migration patterns from the UK to Australia, South Africa, and the US to investigate whether a person's decision to smoke is determined by culture. For each country, we use retrospective data to describe individual smoking trajectories over the life-course. For the UK, we use these trajectories to measure culture by cohort and cohort-age, and more accurately relative to the extant literature. Our proxy predicts smoking participation of second-generation British immigrants but not that of non-British immigrants and natives. Researchers can apply our strategy to estimate culture effects on other outcomes when retrospective or longitudinal data are available.

Keywords: Culture; Immigrant health; Smoking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J15 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 p.
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-hea and nep-mig
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Is smoking behavior culturally determined? Evidence from British immigrants (2015)
Working Paper: Is Smoking Behavior Culturally Determined? Evidence from British Immigrants (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1265

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