Lighting Up and Slimming Down: The Effects of Body Weight and Cigarette Prices on Adolescent Smoking Initiation / John Cawley, Sara Markowitz, John Tauras.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cawley, John.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Markowitz, Sara.

Tauras, John.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w9561.

NBER working paper series no. w9561

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Lighting Up and Slimming Down

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2003.

Summary:

This paper examines the influence of body weight, body image, and cigarette prices in determining adolescent smoking initiation. Adolescents who desire to lose weight may initiate smoking as a method of appetite control. Such behavior may undermine the goals of tobacco control policies that seek to prevent smoking initiation. Using a nationally representative panel of adolescents, we show that smoking initiation is more likely among females who are overweight, who report trying to lose weight, or who describe themselves as overweight. In contrast, neither objective nor subjective measures of weight predict smoking initiation by males. Higher cigarette prices decrease the probability of smoking initiation among males but have no impact on female smoking initiation. These gender-specific differences may help explain the mixed and inconclusive evidence of the impact of price on smoking initiation found in previous literature

Notes:

Print version record

March 2003.