FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 20, 1998
CONTACT:
Beth Workman
301/405-4622
[email protected]
Economist PredictsTwenty-Seven Percent Reduction in Teen Smoking With Proposed Cigarette Tax Hike
COLLEGE PARK, MD -- Senator John McCain's proposed comprehensive tobacco legislation that is expected to raise cigarette prices by $1.10 per pack will reduce teen smoking rates by 27 percent, according to a new study by University of Maryland economist William Evans and co-author Lynn Huang of the National Opinion Research Center.
Using data from 1985-1992 surveys of high school seniors, Evans and Huang estimated the impact of higher cigarette prices on smoking rates by examining how teens respond to higher cigarette taxes. They found that the fraction of high school seniors who smoked in the previous 30 days fell in states that increased their tax relative to states with no tax change. "A ten percent increase in the price of a pack of cigarettes will result in a 5 percent reduction in teen smoking," says Evans. Evans notes that while "there may be some naysayers, the evidence is overwhelming: higher taxes reduce teen smoking."
Evans and Huang also found that while male and female teens reacted similarly to tax hikes, white non-Hispanic students were less responsive to tax changes than students from other racial/ethnic groups.
Evans' and Huang's research was based on surveys conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research as part of the Monitoring the Future Project. Between 1985-1992 more than 110,000 surveys of randomly-selected high school seniors were conducted. This is the largest sample ever employed to analyze the question of whether teen smoking is responsive to higher taxes. Smokers are defined as those who had smoked within the 30 days preceding the survey.
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