Although it may at first seem unimportant, the structure of excise taxes on cigarettes greatly affects the price of cigarettes, the structure of the consumption, but also the amount of the tax revenue. EU Directive 2011/64/EU prescribes the combination of the specific and the proportional (ad...

This paper investigates the impact of the public smoking ban which came into effect in Italy on January 2005 on individual smoking behaviour. Current empirical evidence supports the existence of a negative effect of the Italian ban on smoking prevalence and consumption in the general population....

This paper investigates how legal cannabis access affects student performance. Identification comes from an exceptional policy introduced in the city of Maastricht which discriminated legal access based on individuals’ nationality. We apply a difference-in-difference approach using...

This paper investigates the relationship between health insurance coverage and risky health behaviors among young adults using the confidential version of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort (NLSY97). Before the Affordable Care Act required all employers to provide health...

Ten Central and Eastern European countries, as well as Cyprus and Malta, have applied for membership of the European Union. Membership involves, among others, alignment of the taxes on tobacco products. Within the acquis communautaire, accession countries can choose between a predominantly...

This paper considers an intertemporal decision problem in which the agent has limited foresight. It offers an interpretation of why people may smoke when they are young - and arguably have a short horizon of foresight and refrain from smoking when they get older - and their foresight is better.

We use instrumental variable methods to investigate whether the impact of parental smoking habits on their children's smoking decisions is a causal one. We find evidence of same-sex role models in two-parent households: mothers play a crucial role in determining their daughters' smoking...

This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of the minimum legal tobacco purchase age (MLTPA) laws on smoking behavior among young adults. Using data from the confidential version of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997 Cohort), which contains information on...

Are workplace smoking bans (WSBs) more than a ban on smoking? We study whether WSBs influence smoking cessation and exert behavioural spillover effects on (i) a set of health behaviours, and (ii) on individuals not directly affected by the bans. Drawing upon quasi-experimental evidence from...