Does E-Cigarette Advertising Encourage Adult Smokers to Quit? / Dhaval M. Dave, Daniel Dench, Michael Grossman, Donald S. Kenkel, Henry Saffer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dave, Dhaval M.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Dench, Daniel.

Grossman, Michael.

Kenkel, Donald Scott, 1959-

Saffer, Henry.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w24277.

NBER working paper series no. w24277

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2018.

Summary:

Only recently introduced into the U.S. market, e-cigarettes have been aggressively promoted, and use is increasing rapidly among both adults and youths. At the heart of the regulatory debate are fundamental questions regarding whether e-cigarettes will draw cigarette smokers away from a dangerous habit or lure new initiates into tobacco use. We provide some of the first causal evidence on whether e-cigarette advertising on television and in magazines (which comprise about 90% of total media spending on e-cigarettes) encourage adult smokers to quit. We find that the answer to this question is a yes for TV advertising but no for magazine advertising. Our results indicate that a policy to ban TV advertising of e-cigarettes would have reduced the number of smokers who quit in the recent past by approximately 3%, resulting in roughly 105,000 fewer quitters in that period. On the other hand, if the FDA were not considering regulations and mandates that would likely eliminate many e-cigarette producers during our sample period, e-cigarette ads might have reached the number of nicotine replacement therapy TV ads during that period. That would have increased the number of smokers who quit by around 10%, resulting in an additional 350,000 quitters.

Notes:

Print version record

February 2018.