Heterogeneity in Smokers' Responses to Tobacco Control Policies
利用无条件分位数回归分析美国国民健康与营养调查数据，发现香烟税对每日吸烟量和血清可替宁水平的影响在吸烟强度分布的不同分位点上存在差异，中分位点边际效应最大，低分位点弹性最大。
This paper uses unconditional quantile regression to estimate whether smokers' responses to tobacco control policies change across the distribution of smoking levels. I measure smoking behavior with the number of cigarettes smoked per day and also with serum cotinine levels, a continuous biomarker of nicotine exposure, using individual-level repeated cross-section data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. I find that the cigarette taxes lead to reductions in both the number of cigarettes smoked per day and in smokers' cotinine levels. These reductions are most pronounced in the middle quantiles of both distributions in terms of marginal effects, but most pronounced in the lower quantiles in terms of tax elasticities. I do not find that higher cigarette taxes lead to statistically significant changes in the amount of nicotine smokers ingest from each cigarette. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.