TY  - JOUR
AU  - Evans,William N.
AU  - Farrelly,Matthew C.
AU  - Montgomery,Edward
TI  - Do Workplace Smoking Bans Reduce Smoking?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5567
PY  - 1996
Y2  - May 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5567
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5567.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
William N. Evans
Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Economics
Department of Economics and Econometrics
447 Flanner Hall
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Tel: 574-631-7039
E-Mail: wevans1@nd.edu

Edward B. Montgomery
Dean, Georgetown Public Policy Institute
Georgetown University
3520 Prospect Street NW, 4th Floor
Washington DC 20007
Tel: 202/687-7051
Fax: 202/687-1904
E-Mail: ebm48@georgetown.edu
AB  - In recent years there has been a heightened public concern over the potentially harmful effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). In response, smoking has been banned on many jobs.  Using data from the 1991 and 1993 National Health Interview Survey and smoking supplements to the September 1992 and May 1993 Current Population Survey, we investigate whether these workplace policies reduce smoking prevalence and smoking intensity among workers.  Our estimates suggest that workplace bans reduce smoking prevalence by 5 percentage points and average daily consumption among smokers by 10 percent.  The impact of the ban is greatest for those with longer work weeks.  Although workers with better health habits are more likely to work at establishments with workplace smoking bans, estimates from bivariate probit and two-stage least square equations suggest that these estimates are not subject to an omitted variables bias.  The rapid increase in workplace bans can explain all of the recent sharp fall in smoking among workers relative to non-workers.
ER  -