Social Interactions and Smoking
|
NBER Working Paper No. 13477
Issued in October 2007
NBER Program(s): AG HC HE
The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this.
You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.
Are individuals more likely to smoke when they are surrounded by smokers? In this paper, we examine the evidence for peer effects in smoking. We address the endogeneity of peers by looking at the impact of workplace smoking bans on spousal and peer group smoking. Using these bans as an instrument, we find that individuals whose spouses smoke are 40 percent more likely to smoke themselves. We also find evidence for the existence of a social multiplier in that the impact of smoking bans and individual income becomes stronger at higher levels of aggregation. This social multiplier could explain the large time series drop in smoking among some demographic groups.
Published: Social Interactions and Smoking, David M. Cutler, Edward L. Glaeser, in Research Findings in the Economics of Aging (2010), University of Chicago Press
This paper is available as PDF (173 K) or via email.
Acknowledgments
Machine-readable bibliographic record -
MARC,
RIS,
BibTeX
|
|
|
About
Support
The research activities of the NBER are funded by grants from federal research agencies, by private foundations, and by generous donations from our corporate associates and from private individuals. The NBER is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. For information on supporting the NBER, please contact:
Mr. Denis Healy, Director of Development
NBER
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138-5398
ph: 617-868-3900
email: dhealy@nber.org
Close
