Taxes, Cigarette Consumption, and Smoking Intensity.

This paper analyses the compensatory behavior of smokers. Exploiting data on cotinine concentration--a metabolite of nicotine--measured in a large population of smokers over time, we show that smokers compensate for tax hikes by extracting more nicotine per cigarette. Our study makes two important contributions. First, as smoking a given cigarette more intensively is detrimental to health, our results question the usefulness of tax increases. Second, we develop a model of rational addiction where agents can also adjust their intensity of smoking, and we show that the previous empirical results suffer from estimation biases.

• Publication year

  2005

• Venue

  The American Economic Review

• Publication date

  2005-11-01

• Fields of study

  Law, Medicine, Economics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1257/AER.96.4.1013PMID 29135206
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Quantifying the cost of passive smoking on child health: evidence from children's cotinine samples

  2011cited by this paper
• Cigarette taxes and older adult smoking: evidence from recent large tax increases.

  2008cited by this paper
• Scaling regression inputs by dividing by two standard deviations

  2008cited by this paper
• Behavior towards health risks: An empirical study using the “Mad Cow” crisis as an experiment

  2007cited by this paper
• Faculty Opinions recommendation of Taxes, cigarette consumption, and smoking intensity.

  2007cited by this paper
• The Effect of Taxes and Bans on Passive Smoking

  2005cited by this paper
• The effects of higher cigarette prices on tar and nicotine consumption in a cohort of adult smokers.

  2004cited by this paper
• Putting Out the Fires: Will Higher Taxes Reduce the Onset of Youth Smoking?

  2002cited by this paper
• Nicotine yield from machine-smoked cigarettes and nicotine intakes in smokers: evidence from a representative population survey.

  2001cited by this paper
• Is Addiction “Rational”? Theory and Evidence

  2001cited by this paper
• Racial differences in the treatment of early-stage lung cancer.

  2000cited by this paper
• Racial differences in the treatment of early-stage lung cancer.

  2000cited by this paper
• Racial differences in the treatment of early-stage lung cancer.

  2000cited by this paper
• Ethnic differences in N-glucuronidation of nicotine and cotinine.

  1999cited by this paper
• Racial differences in the treatment of early-stage lung cancer.

  1999cited by this paper
• The compensating behavior of smokers: taxes, tar, and nicotine.

  1998cited by this paper
• Racial and ethnic differences in serum cotinine levels of cigarette smokers: Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988-1991.

  1998cited by this paper
• Cigarette smoking and changes in the histopathology of lung cancer.

  1997influential reference
• Racial/ethnic patterns of cancer in the United States, 1988-1992.

  1996cited by this paper
• Preference, Belief, and Welfare

  1994cited by this paper
• Behavioral economics of drug self-administration

  1992cited by this paper
• Ethnic differences in nicotine exposure.

  1992cited by this paper
• Behavioral economics of drug self-administration

  1992cited by this paper
• Racial differences in serum cotinine levels among smokers in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in (Young) Adults study.

  1990cited by this paper
• The Selection Problem

  1990cited by this paper
• Rational Addictive Behavior and Cigarette Smoking

  1990influential reference
• A Theory of Rational Addiction

  1988cited by this paper
• Regulation of tobacco smoke intake with paced cigarette presentation.

  1983cited by this paper
• Uncertain Externalities, Liability Rules, and Resource Allocation

  1980cited by this paper
• The misuse of 'less-hazardous' cigarettes and its detection: hole-blocking of ventilated filters.

  1980cited by this paper
• Taxing tar and nicotine

  1977cited by this paper
• Plasma nicotine levels after smoking cigarettes with high, medium, and low nicotine yields.

  1975cited by this paper
• The economics of smoking.

  1972cited by this paper
• THE BLACK DEATH

  1909cited by this paper

• Power of personalized smoking cessation: A quantitative lifecycle framework for policy evaluation

  2025cites this paper
• Smoking knowledge and decision in an era of widespread awareness: Persistent disparities and policy implications

  2025cites this paper
• Spatiotemporal analysis of consumer scanning behavior using integrated QR code and POI data

  2025cites this paper
• Cigarette Taxes and the Household Budget

  2025cites this paper
• The Causal Effects of Youth Cigarette Addiction and Education

  2025cites this paper
• How the sales of oral nicotine pouches correlate with prices and respond to taxes on cigarettes and e-cigarettes.

  2025cites this paper
• The Impact of Smoking Bans in Bars on Alcohol Consumption and Smoking

  2025cites this paper
• Associations Between Characteristics Of Large National Regions And Individual Smoking: A Scoping Review

  2024cites this paper
• Revisiting the effects of cigarette taxation on smoking outcomes

  2024cites this paper
• The effects of tobacco 21 laws on smoking and vaping: Evidence from panel data and biomarkers.

  2024cites this paper
• Cigarette smoking across life from 1946 to 2018: Harmonisation of four British birth cohort studies

  2024cites this paper
• Understanding Society: health, biomarker and genetic data

  2023cites this paper
• The Long-Term Impacts of Cigarette Taxes on Smoking.

  2023cites this paper
• The prevalence, trends and heterogeneity in maternal smoking around birth between the 1930s and 1970s

  2023cites this paper
• The impact of the smoking ban on individual hospitality venues

  2022cites this paper
• Smoking intensity and urinary nicotine metabolites by socioeconomic status in the Heinz Nixdorf Recall study

  2022cites this paper
• The Impact of Smoking Bans in Bars and Restaurants on Alcohol Consumption and Smoking

  2022cites this paper
• Smoking Bans, Leisure Time and Subjective Well-being

  2022influential citation
• Health Inequality: The Role of Insurance and Technological Progress

  2021cites this paper
• Do sin tax hikes spur cheating in interpersonal exchange?

  2021cites this paper
• Genetic predispositions moderate the effectiveness of tobacco excise taxes

  2021cites this paper
• Non-Price Tobacco Control Measures: Evidence from Turkey

  2021cites this paper
• Exposure to cigarette taxes as a teenager and the persistence of smoking into adulthood.

  2021cites this paper
• Bittersweet: How prices of sugar-rich foods contribute to the diet-related disease epidemic in Mexico.

  2021cites this paper
• Tax Incidence for Menthol Cigarettes Across Race: Evidence from Nielsen Homescan Data

  2021cites this paper
• Resolving empirical controversies with mechanistic evidence

  2021cites this paper
• Who Pays Sin Taxes? Understanding the Overlapping Burdens of Corrective Taxes

  2021cites this paper
• Education, Dietary Intakes and Exercise

  2021cites this paper
• The Economics of Tobacco Regulation: A Comprehensive Review.

  2020cites this paper
• The Analysis of the Tobacco Product Bans Using a Random Coefficients Logit Model

  2020cites this paper
• Racial demographics and cigarette tax shifting: evidence from scanner data

  2020influential citation
• Cigarette Taxes and Smoking in the Long Run

  2020cites this paper
• The moderating impact of the genetic predisposition to smoking behaviour on the response to tobacco excise taxes

  2020cites this paper
• Smokers are different: The impact of price increases on smoking reduction and downtrading

  2020cites this paper
• NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES THE EFFECTS OF E-CIGARETTE TAXES ON E-CIGARETTE PRICES AND TOBACCO PRODUCT SALES: EVIDENCE FROM RETAIL PANEL DATA

  2020cites this paper
• In the Same Boat, but not Equals: The Heterogeneous Effects of Indirect Taxation on Child Health in Punjab-Pakistan

  2020cites this paper
• Copula Models for Addressing Sample Selection in the Evaluation of Public Health Programmes: An Application to the Leeds Let’s Get Active Study

  2020cites this paper
• Racial demographics and cigarette tax shifting: evidence from scanner data

  2020cites this paper
• The effects of price and non-price policies on cigarette consumption in South Africa

  2020cites this paper
• Smoking Behavior of Older Adults: A Panel Data Analysis Using HRS

  2020cites this paper
• Semiparametric Estimation of a Censored Regression Model Subject to Nonparametric Sample Selection

  2020cites this paper
• The effect of health information on smoking intensity: does addiction matter?

  2020cites this paper
• The Health Toll of Import Competition

  2020cites this paper
• Intended and Unintended Effects of Banning Menthol Cigarettes

  2020cites this paper
• Taxing Tobacco

  2020cites this paper
• Measuring the Effect of Policy on the Demand for Menthol Cigarettes: Evidence from Household-Level Purchase Data

  2019cites this paper
• Impact of Comprehensive Smoking Bans on the Health of Infants and Children: Evidence from the U.S

  2019cites this paper
• Power of Personalized Smoking Cessation: A Quantitative Lifecycle Framework for Policy Evaluation

  2019cites this paper
• Three Essays on Urban and Health Economics

  2019cites this paper
• Multi-step treatment for acquired alexia and agraphia (Part I): efficacy, generalisation, and identification of beneficial treatment steps

  2019cites this paper
• Pigmentation Lesions and Salivary Flow Rates on Woman Smokers

  2019cites this paper
• The educational gap in tar and nicotine content in purchases of cigarettes: An observational study using large-scale representative survey data from Japan.

  2019cites this paper
• Dynamic panel data estimation of an integrated Grossman and Becker–Murphy model of health and addiction

  2019cites this paper
• Tobacco sales prohibition and teen smoking

  2019cites this paper
• The systems approach to Irish society: 136 years of unintended consequences

  2019cites this paper
• Replication studies in economics—How many and which papers are chosen for replication, and why?

  2019cites this paper
• TRADE INDUCED MORTALITY

  2019cites this paper
• Replication data for: Does Early Life Exposure to Cigarette Smoke Permanently Harm Childhood Welfare? Evidence from Cigarette Tax Hikes

  2019cites this paper
• Public insurance expansions and smoking cessation medications.

  2019cites this paper
• Socioeconomic differences in nicotine exposure and dependence in adult daily smokers

  2019cites this paper
• Rational Behavior in Cigarette Consumption: Evidence from the United States

  2019cites this paper
• Tobacco Control Policies and Smokers’ Responses

  2019cites this paper
• Dynamic panel data estimation of an integrated Grossman and Becker–Murphy model of health and addiction

  2018cites this paper
• The health effects of smoking bans: Evidence from German hospitalization data

  2018cites this paper
• An Inquiry on the Heterogeneous Effects of Taxes levied on Soda ∗

  2018cites this paper
• The effectiveness of taxing the carbon content of energy consumption

  2018cites this paper
• The relationship between cigarette taxes and child maltreatment.

  2018cites this paper
• Intergenerational transmission of nicotine within families: Have e‐cigarettes influenced passive smoking?☆

  2018cites this paper
• Affordable care encourages healthy living: Theory and evidence from China's new cooperative medical scheme

  2018cites this paper
• The GDPR beyond Privacy: Data-Driven Challenges for Social Scientists, Legislators and Policy-Makers

  2018cites this paper
• Power of personalized smoking cessation: A unified lifecycle framework for policy evaluation

  2018cites this paper
• Are Graphic Warning Labels Stopping Millions of Smokers? A Comment on Huang, Chaloupka, and Fong · Econ Journal Watch : Cigarette smoking, quasi-experimental methods, policy evaluation, cost-benefit

  2018cites this paper
• Trading service quality for safety: a cautionary tale from the French ‘Robien law’ on elevator safety

  2018cites this paper
• Increases in Cigarette Consumption and Decreases in Smoking Intensity When Nondaily Smokers Are Provided With Free Cigarettes

  2018cites this paper
• Dinner with Bayes: On the revision of risk beliefs

  2018cites this paper
• What Can We Learn about Smoking from 150 Years of Italian Data?

  2018cites this paper
• Examining the relationship between medical cannabis laws and cardiovascular deaths in the US.

  2018cites this paper
• The Impact of Tobacco Control Policies on Adolescent Smoking: Comparing Self-Reports and Biomarkers

  2017influential citation
• The Intergenerational Consequences of Tobacco Policy: A Review of Policy's Influence on Maternal Smoking and Child Health

  2017influential citation
• Effectiveness of intensive smoking reduction counselling plus combination nicotine replacement therapy in promoting long-term abstinence in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease not ready to quit smoking: Protocol of the REDUQ trial

  2017cites this paper
• Trading service quality for safety: a cautionary tale from the French ‘Robien law’ on elevator safety

  2017cites this paper
• Heterogeneity in Smokers' Responses to Tobacco Control Policies

  2017influential citation
• outputs Non-Equilibrium Social Science and Policy

  2017cites this paper
• Tobacco Control, Medicaid Coverage, and the Demand for Smoking Cessation Drugs

  2017cites this paper
• Family Health Behaviors

  2017cites this paper
• Non-Equilibrium Social Science and Policy

  2017cites this paper
• Taxing Sinful Consumption

  2017cites this paper
• Impact of the Free Trade Zone on Cigarette Consumption: An Examination of Indonesian Households

  2017influential citation
• The Design of Tobacco Control Policies: Taxation, Antismoking Campaigns, and Smoking Bans

  2017influential citation
• Smoking, Health Capital, and Longevity: Evaluation of Personalized Cessation Treatments in a Lifecycle Model with Heterogeneous Agents

  2017influential citation
• Nicotine Intake per Cigarette Smoked Among Smokers Nationally and in New York City.

  2017cites this paper
• Compliance Inspections of Tobacco Retailers and Youth Smoking

  2017cites this paper
• Taxing Consumption and the Take-up of Public Assistance: The Case of Cigarette Taxes and Food Stamps

  2017cites this paper
• Economic Remedies to Reduce Smoking

  2017cites this paper
• Punctuated gradualism : policy images, public opinion and policy change in tobacco control

  2017cites this paper
• Regressive Sin Taxes

  2017cites this paper
• Impact of Comprehensive Smoking Bans on the Health of Infants and Children

  2017cites this paper
• Reporting error in weight and height among older adults: Implications for estimating healthcare costs

  2017cites this paper
• Cigarette Taxes, Smoking—and Exercise?

  2017influential citation
• The Impact of Tobacco-Free School Laws on Student and Staff Smoking Behavior

  2017cites this paper