Intended and Unintended Effects of Banning Menthol Cigarettes

Christopher Carpenter and Hai V. Nguyen

No 26811, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Bans on menthol cigarettes have been recommended by the World Health Organization, adopted throughout the European Union, and proposed by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), primarily due to concerns that menthol cigarettes enable youth smoking. Yet there is almost no direct evidence on their effects using real-world policy variation. We provide the first comprehensive evaluation of this policy by studying Canada where seven provinces banned menthol cigarettes prior to a nationwide menthol ban in 2018. Using provincial sales data, we show that menthol cigarette sales fell to zero immediately after menthol bans, with no meaningful effect on non-menthol sales. Survey data confirm that provincial menthol bans significantly reduced menthol cigarette smoking among both youths and adults. We also find strong evidence of substitution, however: provincial menthol bans significantly increased non-menthol cigarette smoking among youths, resulting in no overall net change in youth smoking rates. We also document evidence of evasion: provincial menthol bans shifted smokers’ cigarette purchases away from grocery stores and gas stations to First Nations reserves (where the menthol bans do not bind). Our results demonstrate the importance of accounting for substitution and evasion responses in the design of stricter tobacco regulations.

JEL-codes: I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-law
Note: EH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as Christopher S. Carpenter & Hai V. Nguyen, 2021. "Intended and Unintended Effects of Banning Menthol Cigarettes," The Journal of Law and Economics, vol 64(3), pages 629-650.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26811.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:nbr:nberwo:26811

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26811

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().