Did the ban on smoking reduce the revenue in pubs and restaurants in Norway?

Hans Melberg () and Karl E. Lund ()
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Karl E. Lund: Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research

No 2009:9, HERO Online Working Paper Series from University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme

Abstract: After 16 years of exemptions from the ban on indoor smoking in other places of work, Norway became the second country after Ireland to implement a smoke-free regime in pubs and restaurants. This paper evaluates the economic impact on the hospitality sector in a northern region with a cold climate. The data consists of bi-monthly observations of revenues in restaurants and pubs starting in January 1999 and ending in August 2007. Auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) intervention analysis was used to test for possible economic impacts, controlling for variations in temperature.

The ban on smoking did not have a statistically significant effect on revenue in restaurants or on restaurant revenue as a share of personal consumption. There is also no evidence that the ban reduce revenues in bars, but there is some indication that it may have reduced bar revenue as a share of personal consumption. Conclusion: A large body of research has found no negative economic effect of smoke-free legislation on restaurant and bar sales in the United States, Australia and elsewhere Our study confirms these results in a northern region with a cold climate with respect to restaurants, but the results was more mixed for bars.

Keywords: Tobacco; economics; business; passive smoking; legislation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2009-12-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-reg
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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