A 1979 U.S. Surgeon General's report provided the first conclusive public information of nicotine's addictive effects. We test the hypothesis that cigarette demand was of a "myopic" nature prior to 1979, but forward-looking, or "rational," thereafter.

Although cigarette manufacturers were aware of the addictive properties of nicotine as early as 1962, the information did not become available to the U.S. public until 1979 when the Surgeon General disclosed it. This study simulates the impact that this information would have had on the demand...

We conduct cusum tests of structural change in a rational addiction model of cigarette demand estimated using a panel of annual time series of state-level data. In contrast to the one previous application of cusum tests to the question of cigarette demand stability, our results provide strong...