TY  - JOUR
AU  - Chaloupka,Frank J.
AU  - Grossman,Michael
AU  - Tauras,John A.
TI  - Public Policy and Youth Smokeless Tobacco Use
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5524
PY  - 1996
Y2  - April 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5524
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5524.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Frank J. Chaloupka, IV
University of Illinois at Chicago
Department of Economics (m/c 144)
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
601 S. Morgan Street, Room 713
Chicago, IL  60607-7121
Tel: 312/413-2287
Fax: 312/996-3344;630/801-8870
E-Mail: fjc@uic.edu

Michael Grossman
Ph.D. Program in Economics
City University of New York Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, 5th Floor
New York, NY  10016-4309
Tel: 212/817-7959
Fax: 212/817-1597
E-Mail: mgrossman@gc.cuny.edu

John A. Tauras
University of Illinois at Chicago
Department of Economics (m/c 144)
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
601 S. Morgan Street, Room 707
Chicago, IL  60607
Tel: 312/413-3289
Fax: 312/996-3344
E-Mail: tauras@uic.edu
AB  - While much is known about the effects of prices and tobacco control policies on cigarette smoking, relatively little is known about their impact on smokeless tobacco use.  This paper addresses these issues using data on smokeless tobacco use by adolescent males taken from the  1992, 1993, and 1994 Monitoring the Future Surveys. Site-specific smokeless tobacco tax data and several measures of limits on youth access to tobacco products are added to the survey data.  Ordered probit methods are used to examine the impact of prices and tobacco control policies on the frequency of smokeless tobacco use among young males.  Comparable two-part models are estimated for participation in smokeless tobacco use and for conditional smokeless tobacco demand.  The estimates indicate that increases in smokeless tobacco taxes would lead to significant reductions in both the number of young men using smokeless tobacco and in the frequency of smokeless tobacco use.  The average estimated price elasticity of smokeless tobacco participation for adolescent males is -0.40, while the overall average estimated price elasticity of demand is -0.65.  In addition, strong limits on youth access to smokeless tobacco products are found to be effective in reducing both participation in smokeless tobacco use and the frequency of smokeless tobacco use by young males.
ER  -