Smoking, Income and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Smoking Bans

Abel Brodeur

No 7357, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of local smoking bans on different out-comes using county and time variation over the last 20 years in the US. First, I find no evidence that local smoking bans in bars, restaurants and workplaces decrease the prevalence of smoking. The estimates are very small and not statistically significant. Well-being is also affected by these policies: public smoking bans make smokers who do not quit more satisfied with their life. I verify the robustness of this result throughout, and validate my findings with two distinct data sources. I discuss and test the mechanisms behind this seemingly paradoxical relationship. The evidence suggests that smokers adapt to this policy since the impact on satisfaction is negative just before the implementation and positive afterward. Last, I find evidence that smokers do not favor the implementation of smoking bans. Yet, once they are exposed to a public smoking ban, they are less-opposed to those policies. Together the evidence suggests that current smokers are time-inconsistent and benefit from smoking policies.

Keywords: subjective well-being; smoking policies; addiction; adaptation; time-inconsistency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D62 H51 I18 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2013-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp7357.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Smoking, Income and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Smoking Bans (2013)
Working Paper: Smoking, income and subjective well-being: evidence from smoking bans (2013)
Working Paper: Smoking, Income and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Smoking Bans (2012)
Working Paper: Smoking, Income and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Smoking Bans (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7357

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().