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Title: Evaluating Policies in a Dynamic Context When Agents Anticipate Policy Change: The Case of Indoor Smoking Bans
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Matsumoto, Brett |
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Evaluating Policies in a Dynamic Context When Agents Anticipate Policy Change: The Case of Indoor Smoking Bans Presented: Philadelphia PA, American Economic Association Annual Meeting, January 2018 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: American Economic Association Keyword(s): Geocoded Data; Legislation; Smoking (see Cigarette Use); State-Level Data/Policy Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. In this paper, I examine how the introduction of indoor smoking bans affects individual smoking behavior using panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. This paper addresses two main questions. First, are indoor smoking bans an effective policy tool for reducing smoking, and do individuals anticipate the introduction of the smoking bans? I find that indoor smoking bans are generally effective at reducing the probability that an individual smokes. Also, there appears to be some evidence that individuals are able to anticipate and adjust their behavior prior to the introduction of an indoor smoking ban. Individuals adjust their behavior in response to the implementation of city and county level smoking bans in their state of residence but outside of their own county of residence. I interpret this response as individuals adjusting their beliefs as to the likelihood of a future state level ban, as individuals are unlikely to be directly affected by these bans. The identification strategy commonly used to identify the effect of indoor smoking bans is to use the variation in the timing of the introduction of indoor smoking bans across states. Since smoking is a dynamic behavior, the decision to smoke depends upon the individual's expectations of future states of the world. Therefore, individuals may start to adjust their behavior prior to the implementation of the policy, and their behavior may change little upon actual implementation. By taking into account this additional channel through which smoking bans influence smoking behavior, I find that indoor smoking bans may have a much larger impact than what has typically been found in the literature. |
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Bibliography Citation
Matsumoto, Brett. "Evaluating Policies in a Dynamic Context When Agents Anticipate Policy Change: The Case of Indoor Smoking Bans." Presented: Philadelphia PA, American Economic Association Annual Meeting, January 2018. |