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by Frank Chaloupka Michael Grossman National
Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. While much is known about
the effects of prices and tobacco control policies on cigarette smoking,
relatively little is known about their impact on smokeless tobacco use.
This paper addresses these issues using data on smokeless tobacco use
by adolescent males taken from the 1992, 1993, and 1994 Monitoring the
Future Surveys. Site-specific smokeless tobacco tax data and several measures
of limits on youth access to tobacco products are added to the survey
data. Ordered probit methods are used to examine the impact of prices
and tobacco control policies on the frequency of smokeless tobacco use
among young males. Comparable two-part models are estimated for participation
in smokeless tobacco use and for conditional smokeless tobacco demand.
The estimates indicate that increases in smokeless tobacco taxes would
lead to significant reductions in both the number of young men using smokeless
tobacco and in the frequency of smokeless tobacco use. The average estimated
price elasticity of smokeless tobacco participation for adolescent males
is -0.40, while the overall average estimated price elasticity of demand
is -0.65. In addition, strong limits on youth access to smokeless tobacco
products are found to be effective in reducing both participation in smokeless
tobacco use and the frequency of smokeless tobacco use by young males.
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