TY  - JOUR
AU  - Levy,Douglas E.
AU  - Meara,Ellen
TI  - The Effect of the 1998 Master Settlement on Prenatal Smoking
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11176
PY  - 2005
Y2  - March 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11176
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11176.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Douglas E. Levy
Institute for Health Policy
MassGeneral Hospital
50 Staniford St, 9th floor
Boston, MA 02114
Tel: 617.643.3595
Fax: 617.724.4738
E-Mail: douglas_levy@post.harvard.edu

Ellen Meara
Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy
and Clinical Practice
35 Centerra Parkway
Lebanon, NH 03755
Tel: 603/653-0899
E-Mail: ellen.r.meara@dartmouth.edu
AB  - The Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between the major tobacco companies and 46 states created an abrupt 45 cent (21%) increase in cigarette prices in November, 1998. Earlier estimates of the elasticity of prenatal smoking implied that the price rise would reduce prenatal cigarette smoking by 7% to 21%. Using birth records on 10 million U.S. births between January 1996 and February 2000, we examined the change in smoking during pregnancy and conditional smoking intensity in response to the MSA. Overall, adjusting for secular trends in smoking, prenatal smoking declined much less than predicted in response to the MSA.
ER  -