 Obesity, smoking, and cigarette taxes: Evidence from the Canadian Community Health SurveysAnindya Sen (), Mahdiyeh Entezarkheir () and Alan Wilson Health Policy, 2010, vol. 97, issue 2-3, 180-186 Abstract: Objectives Recent studies suggest an ambiguous relationship between obesity and cigarette taxes. We employ Canadian data to evaluate the effects of cigarette taxes on smoking and obesity.Methods We use a simple reduced form approach and exploit the significant cross-province differences that exist between Eastern and Western Canada to estimate the effects of higher cigarette taxes using aggregate health region and individual level data from the 2003 and 2005 waves of the Canadian Community Health Surveys (CCHS).Results OLS estimates based on health regions data suggest that a 10% increase in cigarette taxes is significantly correlated with a 4-5% increase in the percentage of obese population. We also find cigarette tax elasticities of between -0.2 and -0.4 with respect to the percentage of smokers. Estimates from individual level data are similar.Conclusions In tandem, these results offer support to the possibility that health benefits from higher cigarette taxes and lower smoking, might be partially offset by a corresponding increase in obesity levels. Keywords: Obesity; Smoking; Cigarette; taxes (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:97:y:2010:i:2-3:p:180-186 Access Statistics for this article Health Policy is currently edited by Katrien Kesteloot, Mia Defever and Irina Cleemput More articles in Health Policy from Elsevier |
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