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Does smoking really harm your earnings so much? Biases in current estimates of the smoking wage penalty

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  • Silke Anger
  • Michael Kvasnicka

Abstract

Empirical studies on the earnings effects of tobacco use have found significant wage penalties attached to smoking. This article produces evidence that suggests that these estimates are significantly upward biased. The bias arises from a general failure in the literature to control for past smoking behaviour of individuals. Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) regressions show that the smoking wage penalty is reduced by as much as a third, if past smoking of individuals is controlled for.

Suggested Citation

  • Silke Anger & Michael Kvasnicka, 2010. "Does smoking really harm your earnings so much? Biases in current estimates of the smoking wage penalty," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(6), pages 561-564.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:17:y:2010:i:6:p:561-564
    DOI: 10.1080/13504850802260846
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    Cited by:

    1. Matt Dickson, 2013. "The Causal Effect of Education on Wages Revisited," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(4), pages 477-498, August.
    2. Haque, Samiul & Abedin, Naveen & Fakir, Adnan M. S. & Hannan, Rafe & Alam, Rafa, 2019. "Effects of smoking on agricultural productivity," 2019 Annual Meeting, July 21-23, Atlanta, Georgia 291149, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2012. "Myopia, regrets, and risky behaviors," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(2), pages 288-317, April.
    4. Julie L. Hotchkiss & M. Melinda Pitts, 2013. "Even one is too much: the economic consequences of being a smoker," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2013-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    5. Maryam Dilmaghani, 2022. "The link between smoking, drinking and wages: Health, workplace social capital or discrimination?," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 160-183, March.
    6. Lång, Elisabeth & Nystedt, Paul, 2018. "Blowing up money? The earnings penalty of smoking in the 1970s and the 21st century," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 39-52.
    7. Bhai Moiz, 2020. "The Earning Losses of Smokers," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 9(1), pages 1-21, March.
    8. Eric A. BONDZIE, 2016. "Effect of Smoking and other Economic Variables on Wages in the Euro Area," Journal of Economics Bibliography, KSP Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 38-52, March.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • I19 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Other
    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation

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