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On the identification of the effect of smoking on mortality

Author

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  • Jerome Adda

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Bocconi University)

  • Valérie Lechene

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London)

Abstract

This paper considers the identification of the effect of tobacco on mortality. If individuals select into smoking according to some unobserved health characteristic, then estimates of the effect of tobacco on health that do not account for this are biased. We show that using information on mortality, morbidity and smoking, it is possible to control for this selection effect and obtain consistent estimates of the effect of smoking on mortality. We implement our method on Swedish data. We show that there is selection into smoking, and considerable dispersion around the average effect, so that health policies that aim at decreasing smoking prevalence and quantities smoked might have less effect in terms of average number of years of life gained than previously estimated. We also empirically show that selection into smoking has increased over the last fifty years with the availability of information on the dangers of smoking, so that future studies comparing smokers and non smokers will spuriously reveal a worsening effect of tobacco on health if they fail to control for selection.

Suggested Citation

  • Jerome Adda & Valérie Lechene, 2004. "On the identification of the effect of smoking on mortality," CeMMAP working papers CWP13/04, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:cemmap:13/04
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    File URL: http://cemmap.ifs.org.uk/wps/cwp0413.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Balia, Silvia & Jones, Andrew M., 2008. "Mortality, lifestyle and socio-economic status," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-26, January.
    2. STANCIOLE Anderson, 2007. "Health Insurance and Life Style Choices: Identifying the Ex Ante Moral Hazard," IRISS Working Paper Series 2007-10, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    3. Grignon, Michel, 2009. "An empirical investigation of heterogeneity in time preferences and smoking behaviors," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 739-751, October.
    4. Shao-Hsun Keng & Sheng-Jang Sheu, 2013. "The effect of stimulants and their combined use with cigarettes on mortality: the case of betel quid," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(4), pages 677-695, August.
    5. Pedro Rosa Dias, 2010. "Modelling opportunity in health under partial observability of circumstances," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(3), pages 252-264, March.
    6. Sunder, Marco, 2005. "Toward generation XL: Anthropometrics of longevity in late 20th-century United States," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 271-295, July.
    7. Silvia Balia & Andrew M. Jones, 2007. "Unravelling the influence of smoking initiation and cessation on premature mortality using a common latent factor model," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 07/06, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health; Duration; Smoking; Selection; Mortality; Life Expectancy; Causality.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

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