Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/v42y1999i2p575-609.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Governmental Composition of the Insurance Costs of Smoking

Author

Listed:
  • Viscusi, W Kip
Abstract
The estimated health risks from smoking have significant external financial consequences for society. Studies at the national level indicate that cigarettes are self-financing since external costs such as those due to illnesses are offset by cost savings associated with premature death, chiefly pension costs. This paper extends this analysis to all 50 states and considers the costs considered in the state attorneys general suits against the cigarette industry. Cigarettes are always self-financing from the standpoint of costs to each state. The extent of the cost savings is less than at the federal level. However, smokers' higher medical costs are outweighed by reduced nursing home expenditures, lower pension costs, and excise taxes, where each of these factors alone usually exceeds the medical cost effect. Copyright 1999 by the University of Chicago.

Suggested Citation

  • Viscusi, W Kip, 1999. "The Governmental Composition of the Insurance Costs of Smoking," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 575-609, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:v:42:y:1999:i:2:p:575-609
    DOI: 10.1086/467435
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/467435
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/467435?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker & Casey B. Mulligan, 1997. "The Endogenous Determination of Time Preference," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 729-758.
    2. Hamermesh, D.S. & Hamermesh, F.W., 1983. "Does perception of life expectancy reflect health knowledge?," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 73(8), pages 911-914.
    3. Chaloupka, Frank, 1991. "Rational Addictive Behavior and Cigarette Smoking," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 722-742, August.
    4. Becker, Gary S & Grossman, Michael & Murphy, Kevin M, 1994. "An Empirical Analysis of Cigarette Addiction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 396-418, June.
    5. Wasserman, Jeffrey & Manning, Willard G. & Newhouse, Joseph P. & Winkler, John D., 1991. "The effects of excise taxes and regulations on cigarette smoking," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 43-64, May.
    6. Grossman, Michael, 1991. "The demand for cigarettes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 101-103, May.
    7. Schoenbaum, M., 1997. "Do smokers understand the mortality effects of smoking? Evidence from the health and retirement survey," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 87(5), pages 755-759.
    8. Douglas, Stratford & Hariharan, Govind, 1994. "The hazard of starting smoking: Estimates from a split population duration model," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 213-230, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Usher, Dan, 2001. "Personal goods, efficiency and the law," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 673-703, November.
    2. Schnellenbach, Jan, 2012. "Nudges and norms: On the political economy of soft paternalism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 266-277.
    3. Picone Gabriel & Sloan Frank, 2001. "How Costly Are Smokers to Other People? Longitudinal Evidence on the Near Elderly," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-31, January.
    4. Frank A. Sloan & Justin G. Trogdon, 2004. "Litigation and the Political Clout of the Tobacco Companies: Cigarette Taxes, Prices, and the Master Settlement Agreement," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2004-04, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    5. Mariana Conte Grand & Pablo Perel & Raúl Pitarque & Gustavo Sánchez, 2003. "Estimación del costo económico en Argentina de la mortalidad atribuible al tabaco en adultos," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 253, Universidad del CEMA.
    6. Cutler, David M & Epstein, Arnold M. & Frank, Richard G. & Hartman, Raymond & King, Charles III & Newhouse, Joseph P. & Rosenthal, Meredith B. & Vigdor, Elizabeth Richardson, 2000. "How Good a Deal Was the Tobacco Settlement? Assessing Payments to Massachusetts," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 21(2-3), pages 235-261, November.
    7. W. Kip Viscusi & Joni Hersch, 2010. "Tobacco Regulation through Litigation: The Master Settlement Agreement," NBER Chapters, in: Regulation vs. Litigation: Perspectives from Economics and Law, pages 71-101, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Mariana Conte Grand, 2005. "Reestimación y actualización del costo económico en Argentina de la mortalidad atribuible al tabaco en adultos," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 305, Universidad del CEMA.
    9. Rajeev Goel, 2008. "Unemployment, insurance and smoking," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(20), pages 2593-2599.
    10. David M. Cutler & Jonathan Gruber & Raymond S. Hartman & Mary Beth Landrum & Joseph P. Newhouse & Meredith B. Rosenthal, 2002. "The Economic impacts of the tobacco settlement," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(1), pages 1-19.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hammar, Henrik & Carlsson, Fredrik, 2001. "Smokers' Decisions To Quit Smoking," Working Papers in Economics 59, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    2. Anne Bretteville-Jensen, 2006. "Drug Demand – Initiation, Continuation and Quitting," De Economist, Springer, vol. 154(4), pages 491-516, December.
    3. repec:zbw:rwirep:0064 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Maria L. Loureiro & Anna Sanz-de-Galdeano & Daniela Vuri, 2010. "Smoking Habits: Like Father, Like Son, Like Mother, Like Daughter?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 72(6), pages 717-743, December.
    5. Jeffrey E. Harris & Beatriz Lopez-Valcarcel, 2004. "Asymmetric Social Interaction in Economics: Cigarette Smoking Among Young People in the United States, 1992-1999," NBER Working Papers 10409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Michael Grossman, 2005. "Individual Behaviours and Substance Use: The Role of Price," Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research, in: Substance Use: Individual Behaviour, Social Interactions, Markets and Politics, pages 15-39, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    7. Suranovic, Steven M. & Goldfarb, Robert S. & Leonard, Thomas C., 1999. "An economic theory of cigarette addiction," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-29, January.
    8. Grimard, Franque & Parent, Daniel, 2007. "Education and smoking: Were Vietnam war draft avoiders also more likely to avoid smoking?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 896-926, September.
    9. Silvia Balia, 2014. "Survival expectations, subjective health and smoking: evidence from SHARE," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 753-780, September.
    10. Chaloupka, Frank J. & Wechsler, Henry, 1997. "Price, tobacco control policies and smoking among young adults," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 359-373, June.
    11. Robert L. Ohsfeldt & Raymond G. Boyle & Eli I. Capilouto, 1999. "Tobacco Taxes, Smoking Restrictions, and Tobacco Use," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse: An Integration of Econometric and Behavioral Economic Research, pages 15-30, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Göhlmann, Silja & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2008. "Smoking in Germany: Stylized Facts, Behavioral Models, and Health Policy," Ruhr Economic Papers 64, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    13. Frank J. Chaloupka & Michael Grossman, 1996. "Price, Tobacco Control Policies and Youth Smoking," NBER Working Papers 5740, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Silja Göhlmann & Christoph M. Schmidt, 2008. "Smoking in Germany: Stylized Facts, Behavioral Models, and Health Policy," Ruhr Economic Papers 0064, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    15. Andrew Clark & Fabrice Etile, 1999. "The Effect of Health Information on Cigarette Consumption: Evidence from British Panel Data," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques bla99090, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    16. DeCicca, Philip & Kenkel, Donald & Mathios, Alan, 2000. "Putting Out The Fires: Will Higher Taxes Reduce Youth Smoking?," Working Papers 00-3, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    17. Emery, Sherry & White, Martha M. & Pierce, John P., 2001. "Does cigarette price influence adolescent experimentation?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 261-270, March.
    18. Charles L. Baum, 2009. "The effects of cigarette costs on BMI and obesity," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 3-19, January.
    19. Richards, Timothy J. & Hamilton, Stephen F., 2012. "Obesity and Hyperbolic Discounting: An Experimental Analysis," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 37(2), pages 1-18, August.
    20. William N. Evans & Jeanne S. Ringel & Diana Stech, 1999. "Tobacco Taxes and Public Policy to Discourage Smoking," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 13, pages 1-56, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Donald S. Kenkel & Ping Wang, 1999. "Are Alcoholics in Bad Jobs?," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse: An Integration of Econometric and Behavioral Economic Research, pages 251-278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:v:42:y:1999:i:2:p:575-609. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.