TY - JOUR AU - Saffer,Henry AU - Chaloupka,Frank TI - Tobacco Advertising: Economic Theory and International Evidence JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 6958 PY - 1999 Y2 - February 1999 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6958 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6958.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Henry Saffer NBER 365 Fifth Avenue, 5th Floor New York, NY 10016-4309 Tel: 212/817-7956 Fax: 212/817-1597 E-Mail: hsaffer@gc.cuny.edu 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 AB - Tobacco advertising is a public health issue if these activities increase smoking. Although public health advocates assert that tobacco advertising does increase smoking, there is significant empirical literature that finds little or no effect of tobacco advertising on smoking. In this paper, these prior studies are examined more closely with several important insights emerging from this analysis. This paper also provides new empirical evidence on the effect of tobacco advertising. The primary conclusion of this research is that a comprehensive set of tobacco advertising bans can reduce tobacco consumption and that a limited set of tobacco advertising bans will have little of no effect. The regression results indicate that a comprehensive set of tobacco advertising bans can reduce consumption by 6.3 percent. The regression results also indicate that the new European Commission directive tobacco advertising in the EC countries, will reduce tobacco consumption by about 6.9 percent on average in the EC. The regression results also indicate that the ban on outdoor advertising included in the US tobacco industry state level settlement will probably not result in much change in advertising expenditures nor in tobacco use. Under the settlement industry would also contribute $1.5 billion over five years for public education on tobacco use. This counteradvertising could reduce tobacco use by about two percent. ER -