The Demand for Cigarettes as Derived from the Demand for Weight Loss: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation
构建吸烟与体重的经济模型，利用青少年调查数据发现46%的频繁吸烟女孩和30%的男孩部分出于控制体重而吸烟，且该行为在自认为超重者中更常见，进而讨论对税收政策的影响。
This paper offers an economic model of smoking and body weight and provides new empirical evidence on the extent to which the demand for cigarettes is derived from the demand for weight loss. In the model, smoking causes weight loss in addition to having direct utility benefits and direct health consequences. It predicts that some individuals smoke for weight loss and that the practice is more common among those who consider themselves overweight and those who experience greater disutility from excess weight. We test these hypotheses using nationally representative data in which adolescents are directly asked whether they smoke to control their weight. We find that, among teenagers who smoke frequently, 46% of girls and 30% of boys are smoking in part to control their weight. As predicted by the model, this practice is significantly more common among those who describe themselves as too fat and among groups that tend to experience greater disutility from obesity. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for tax policy; specifically, the demand for cigarettes is less price elastic among those who smoke for weight loss, all else being equal. Public health efforts to reduce smoking initiation and encourage cessation may wish to design campaigns to alter the derived nature of cigarette demand, especially among adolescent girls.