Smoking in Germany: Stylized Facts, Behavioral Models, and Health Policy

Silja Göhlmann and Christoph Schmidt
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Silja Goehlmann

No 64, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: It is well known that smoking causes severe adverse health effects, and it seems evident that governments are justified or even obliged to implement measures of tobacco control to mitigate these effects. Yet, as this paper argues with a distinct focus on Germany, the three most important and still largely open questions in the design and implementation of economic and health policy are, whether government action is justified at all, what behavioral patterns this policy should try to alter, and whether the policy measures chosen indeed exert any substantial effects on the targeted outcomes. We conclude that the case for control measures aiming at the prevention of smoking initiation among adolescents is indeed strong, but also that their proper design would benefit from a better understanding of behavioral issues and that their empirical evaluation requires (non-experimental) study designs that facilitate the identification of causal effects.

Keywords: Tobacco; tobacco control; rational addiction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:rwirep:64

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