IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/amjhec/v3y2017i1p10-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Compliance Inspections of Tobacco Retailers and Youth Smoking

Author

Listed:
  • Rahi Abouk

    (Department of Economics, Finance, and Global Business, William Paterson University)

  • Scott Adams

    (Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee)

Abstract

Since 2010, the Food and Drug Administration has contracted with states to perform random checks of tobacco retailers to identify illegal sales to youths. We test whether the inspections affect youth access and smoking for boys and girls. Using the 2010–13 Monitoring the Future survey and data on the number and location of inspections in the first several years of the program, we find the checks have been successful at limiting access to cigarettes in small retail establishments. As for reducing smoking, we observe reductions only among girls. Boys continue to smoke with about the same incidence and intensity as before the inspections. The likely reason for this is that girls are generally more successful at purchasing illicit products at retail establishments while underage. Therefore, enforcing the minimum legal age laws for purchasing tobacco products likely curtails the access of girls to the illegal product.

Suggested Citation

  • Rahi Abouk & Scott Adams, 2017. "Compliance Inspections of Tobacco Retailers and Youth Smoking," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 10-32, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:amjhec:v:3:y:2017:i:1:p:10-32
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1162/AJHE_a_00065
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abouk, Rahi & De, Prabal K. & Pesko, Michael F., 2024. "Estimating the effects of tobacco-21 on youth tobacco use and sales," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Meier, Armando N. & Odermatt, Reto & Stutzer, Alois, 2021. "Tobacco sales prohibition and teen smoking," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 998-1014.
    3. Erica Louis Mtenga & Michael F. Pesko, 2024. "The effect of vertical identification card laws on teenage tobacco and alcohol use," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(11), pages 2525-2557, November.
    4. Abouk, Rahi & Adams, Scott, 2017. "Bans on electronic cigarette sales to minors and smoking among high school students," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 17-24.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    youth smoking; retail regulation;

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:amjhec:v:3:y:2017:i:1:p:10-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.