Much Ado About Nothing? – Smoking Bans and Germany's Hospitality Industry

Michael Kvasnicka and Harald Tauchmann

No 172, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: Over the last years, public smoking bans have been introduced in most European countries. Unlike elsewhere, in Germany such bans were introduced at state level at different points in time, which provides important intra-country regional variation that can be exploited to identify the effects of such bans on the hospitality industry. Using monthly data from a compulsory survey carried out by the German Federal Statistical Office, we study the short-run effects that these bans had on establishments' sales. In contrast to the largely US-based literature, we find that smoke-free policies had a negative (yet moderate) effect on establishment sales. Closure rates of businesses in the hospitality industry, however, were not significantly aff ected by the introduction of state smoking bans.

Keywords: smoking bans; sales; intra-country regional variation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 L51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Much ado about nothing? Smoking bans and Germany's hospitality industry (2012)
Journal Article: Much ado about nothing? Smoking bans and Germany's hospitality industry (2012)
Working Paper: Much Ado About Nothing? Smoking Bans and Germany's Hospitality Industry (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:rwirep:172

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