More On Smoking Bans

Ryan Avent at The Economist responds to my post on the negative effects of cigarette bans (I argue they increase automotive deaths and secondhand smoke for children) by pointing out a hole in the behavioral theory:

It seems to me that the problem with the logic in this post is that it doesn’t take into account the fact that the increased burden on smokers will induce a respectable share to quit smoking all together.

Ryan’s theoretical objection is warranted as far as what I mentioned in my post. The paper I referenced (ungated working paper here), however, does develop an extensive theoretical model of smoking behavior that would allow some people to smoke less as a result of lower utility of smoking. In fact, the authors show that the model is ambiguous about the impact that bans will have on how much smokers smoke, and how much secondhand smoke most people will be exposed to.  Thus, as Ryan’s objection suggests, the issue of how much more or less people smoke cannot be answered by theory, and has to be settled empirically. In contrast, the theory is unambiguous about the amount of secondhand smoke that children are exposed to.

Fortunately, the authors estimate a variety of econometric models to test the theories, and they find some results that go in either direction. In the end though they conclude:

In summary, we do not find evidence that smoking bans, either in workplaces or in bars and restaurants, have an effect on smoking behavior, in terms of consumption and smoking cessation. These results are not surprising given that the model has no firm predictions regarding these outcomes.

So the evidence comes in against Ryan’s theory. The evidence also suggests that, as predicted by theory, children’s exposure to secondhand smoke increases.