IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/ifweej/7396.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

West-East Convergence in the Prevalence of Cannabis Use: Socioeconomics or Culture?

Author

Listed:
  • Tauchmann, Harald

Abstract

In contrast to West Germany, illicit drugs were virtually absent in East Germany until 1990. However, after the collapse of the former GDR, East Germany was expected to encounter a sharp increase in substance abuse. By analyzing individual data, we find that East Germany largely caught up with West Germany's ever-growing prevalence of cannabis use within a single decade. We decompose the westeast difference in prevalence rates into an explained and an unexplained part using a modified Blinder-Oaxaca procedure. This decomposition suggests that the observed convergence is only weakly related to socioeconomic characteristics and therefore remains mainly unexplained. That is, West and East Germans seem to have become more alike per se. We conclude that both parts of the country have converged in terms of the culture of cannabis consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Tauchmann, Harald, 2008. "West-East Convergence in the Prevalence of Cannabis Use: Socioeconomics or Culture?," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-27.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifweej:7396
    DOI: 10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2008-29
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2008-29
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/27513/1/economics_2008-29.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2008-29?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fairlie, Robert W, 1999. "The Absence of the African-American Owned Business: An Analysis of the Dynamics of Self-Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(1), pages 80-108, January.
    2. van Ours, Jan C. & Williams, Jenny, 2007. "Cannabis prices and dynamics of cannabis use," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 578-596, May.
    3. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    4. Ben Jann, 2005. "Standard Errors for the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition," German Stata Users' Group Meetings 2005 03, Stata Users Group.
    5. Saffer, Henry & Chaloupka, Frank, 1999. "The Demand for Illicit Drugs," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(3), pages 401-411, July.
    6. Fairlie, Robert, 1999. "The Absence of the African-American Owned Business: An Analysis of the Dynamics of Self-Employment," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt84v8v0nr, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    7. Stephen Pudney, 2004. "Keeping off the grass? An econometric model of cannabis consumption in Britain," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 435-453.
    8. Cameron,A. Colin & Trivedi,Pravin K., 2005. "Microeconometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521848053, October.
    9. Thomas Bauer & Mathias Sinning, 2008. "An extension of the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition to nonlinear models," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 92(2), pages 197-206, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Silja Göhlmann & Christoph M. Schmidt & Harald Tauchmann, 2010. "Smoking initiation in Germany: the role of intergenerational transmission," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 227-242, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:zbw:rwirep:0061 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Harald Tauchmann, 2008. "West-East Convergence in the Prevalence of Illicit Drugs: Socioeconomics or Culture?," Ruhr Economic Papers 0061, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    3. Tauchmann, Harald, 2008. "West-East Convergence in the Prevalence of Illicit Drugs: Socioeconomics or Culture?," Economics Discussion Papers 2008-8, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    4. Laetitia Duval & François-Charles Wolff, 2016. "Emigration intentions of Roma: evidence from Central and South-East Europe," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 87-107, January.
    5. Frank M. Fossen, 2012. "Gender differences in entrepreneurial choice and risk aversion -- a decomposition based on a microeconometric model," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(14), pages 1795-1812, May.
    6. Wolff, François-Charles, 2012. "Decomposition of non-linear models using simulated residuals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 346-348.
    7. R. Mussa, 2014. "Extending the Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition to the Independent Double Hurdle Model: With Application to Parental Spending on Education in Malawi," Studies in Economics and Econometrics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 39-54, December.
    8. Gintare Mazeikaite & Cathal O’Donoghue & Denisa M. Sologon, 2019. "The Great Recession, financial strain and self-assessed health in Ireland," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(4), pages 579-596, June.
    9. ChangHwan Kim, 2010. "Decomposing the Change in the Wage Gap Between White and Black Men Over Time, 1980-2005: An Extension of the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition Method," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 38(4), pages 619-651, May.
    10. Laetitia Duval & François-Charles Wolff, 2016. "“I even met happy gypsies”," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 24(4), pages 727-764, October.
    11. Kahn, Nicholas E. & Hansen, Mary Eschelbach, 2017. "Measuring racial disparities in foster care placement: A case study of Texas," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 213-226.
    12. Dolores Jiménez-Rubio & Cristina Hernández-Quevedo, 2011. "Inequalities in the use of health services between immigrants and the native population in Spain: what is driving the differences?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 12(1), pages 17-28, February.
    13. González Álvarez, M Luz & Barranquero, Antonio Clavero, 2009. "Inequalities in health care utilization in Spain due to double insurance coverage: An Oaxaca-Ransom decomposition," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 793-801, September.
    14. Joern Block & Karsten Kohn & Danny Miller & Katrin Ullrich, 2015. "Necessity entrepreneurship and competitive strategy," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 37-54, January.
    15. Castro Campos, Bente, 2013. "Human capital differences or labor market discrimination? The occupational outcomes of ethnic minorities in rural Guizhou (China)," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 73, number 73.
    16. Jörg Schwiebert, 2015. "A detailed decomposition for nonlinear econometric models," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(1), pages 53-67, March.
    17. Makate, Clifton & Mutenje, Munyaradzi, 2021. "Discriminatory effects of gender disparities in improved seed and fertilizer use at the plot-level in Malawi and Tanzania," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    18. Ling Ma & Xiaoyun Liu & Xian Xin, 2013. "Do Poor Rural Households Produce Less Grain than Non-poor Rural Households," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 21(6), pages 22-36, November.
    19. Marco Caliendo & Frank M. Fossen & Alexander Kritikos & Miriam Wetter, 2015. "The Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship: Not just a Matter of Personality," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 61(1), pages 202-238.
    20. Mizunoya, Suguru & Mitra, Sophie & Yamasaki, Izumi, 2018. "Disability and school attendance in 15 low- and middle-income countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 388-403.
    21. Antonella Biscione & Dorothée Boccanfuso & Raul Caruso & Annunziata Felice, 2022. "The innovation gender gap in transition countries," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 39(2), pages 493-516, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cannabis consumption; west-east convergence; decompos;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • P36 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Consumer Economics; Health; Education and Training; Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty
    • P23 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Factor and Product Markets; Industry Studies; Population

    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:zbw:ifweej:7396. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.html .

    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.