Tobacco Sales Prohibition and Teen Smoking

Armando Meier (), Reto Odermatt and Alois Stutzer

No 12231, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We evaluate one of the most prevalent prohibitory policies: banning the sales of tobacco to teens. We exploit the staggered introduction of sales bans across Switzerland and the European Union from 1990 to 2016. The estimates indicate a less than 1 percentage point reduction in teen smoking because of the bans. The reduction is substantially lower than the 5 percentage point reduction expected by health officials. We examine additional outcomes relevant to assessing any prohibitory policy. We find that teens circumvent the bans through peers. Moreover, they consider smokers less cool but do not think smoking is more dangerous.

Keywords: prohibition; tobacco sales bans; youth smoking; attitudes toward smoking; tobacco prevention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 I12 I18 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67 pages
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-law and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - revised version published in: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, 188, 998-1014

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Journal Article: Tobacco sales prohibition and teen smoking (2021)
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