Smoking habit changes and body weight: causal estimates from the British Household Panel Survey

Luca Pieroni and Luca Salmasi

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper evaluates the causal relationship between smoking and body weight through two waves (2004-2006) of the British Household Panel Survey. We model the effect of changes in smoking habits, such as quitting or reducing, and account for the heterogeneous responses of individuals located at different points of the body mass distribution by quantile regression. We investigate the robustness of our results by means of a large set of control groups and the application of an instrumental variable (IV) estimator. Our results reveal the positive effect of quitting smoking on weight changes, which is also found to increase in the highest quantiles, whereas the decision to reduce smoking does not affect body weight. Lastly, cost-benefit analysis reveals that quitting smoking implies savings for the National Health Service which are much larger than the costs associated with increased obesity.

Keywords: Body Mass Index; Overweight and Obesity; QTE; Instrumental Variable; Quantile regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-12-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:43465

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