Essays on Global Youth Tobacco Use: The Role of Cigarette Prices and Regulation Open Access
Kostova, Deliana (2010)
Abstract
The first chapter estimates the impact of cigarette prices
on
youth smoking in lower-income countries using data from the Global
Youth Tobacco
Survey (GYTS). Country-level heterogeneity is addressed with fixed
effects and by
directly controlling for confounding environmental factors such as
local anti-smoking
sentiment, cigarette advertising, anti-smoking media messages, and
compliance with
youth access restrictions. I find that cigarette price is an
important determinant of both
smoking participation and conditional demand. The estimated price
elasticity of
participation is -0.63. The likelihood of participation decreases
with anti-smoking
sentiment and increases with exposure to cigarette advertising. The
estimated price
elasticity of conditional cigarette demand is approximately -1.2.
Neither anti-smoking
sentiment, cigarette advertising, nor access restrictions have an
impact on the intensity of
smoking among current smokers, but exposure to anti-smoking media
may reduce the
number of cigarettes smoked.
The second chapter investigates the impact of cigarette prices on
smoking
initiation and cessation among youth in developing countries using
GYTS data. The effect of price is identified by country fixed
effects
which control for unobserved environmental characteristics such as
anti-smoking
sentiment. Three types of duration analysis are used to examine the
sensitivity of the
results with respect to empirical specification. These are the
discrete-time logit model,
the Cox hazard model, and the split-population duration model.
Unlike the unsplit logit
and Cox models which assume that all subjects have positive hazards
of initiation
(cessation), the split-population model allows for the possibility
that for some individuals
the hazard is zero. A statistically significant impact of cigarette
price on the initiation
(cessation) hazards is identified in the split-population analysis
but not by the logit and
Cox models. The conclusion is that individuals who are intrinsic
non-smokers may not
be as responsive to cigarette prices, so including them in the
sample along with the
potential smokers will attenuate the overall price effect. After
accounting for the
probability that some people will never smoke and some smokers will
never quit, the
price elasticity of the hazard of starting smoking is estimated at
-0.165. The price
elasticity of the hazard of quitting is estimated at 0.27.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Page
Chapter 1
1
1. Introduction
1
2. Literature review
6
3. Data and variables
13
4. Methods
22
4.1 Tobit
23
4.2 Two-part model
25
4.3 Zero-inflated Poisson
27
5. Empirical application and identification concerns
28
5.1 Multicollinearity
31
5.2 Endogeneity of price
32
5.3 Country vs. region fixed effects
34
5.4 Clustering
36
6. Results
38
6.1 Two-part model
38
6.2 Sensitivity checks on the two-part model
42
6.2.1. Using imported-brand prices instead of local-brand
cigarette prices
42
6.2.2. Using Tobacco production per capita as a proxy for
anti-smoking sentiment
43
6.2.3. Using region fixed effects instead of country fixed
effects
44
Table of Contents continued
Page
7. Conclusion
118
Bibliography
120
About this Dissertation
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