Smaller Cigarette Pack as a Commitment to Smoke Less? Insights from Behavioral Economics.

Joachim Marti,Jody Sindelar,Peter G Roma

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0137520

Abstract

Cigarettes are commonly sold in packs of 20 units and therefore little is known about the potential impact of pack size on consumption. Using insights from behavioral economics, we suggest that cigarette packs smaller than the standard size may help some smokers cut back and/or quit, consistent with their long-term goals. Results from an online hypothetical purchase experiment conducted in a sample of US smokers reveal that over a third of smokers are willing to pay a price premium to purchase in smaller quantities. Further, a desire to quit smoking and high self-control is associated with preference for a smaller pack. While we provide some preliminary evidence that smaller packs may be beneficial to certain types of smokers, further research should be conducted to assess whether the smaller pack size should be considered in the arsenal of tobacco control policies to help current smokers quit (JEL: I18; I12; D12)

Highlights

Policy-makers are increasingly concerned with cigarette packaging as it can be used by tobacco companies to entice smokers and by governments to provide textual and graphic health warnings [1,2,3]
The current standard cigarette pack size of 20 units is a convention, but it has never been demonstrated to be the optimal size from the perspective of the smoker or society at large
Our findings suggest that about one third of current smokers would be interested in buying a smaller pack of 10 cigarettes and that most of them report consumption regulation as their main reason for choosing a smaller pack

Summary

Introduction

Policy-makers are increasingly concerned with cigarette packaging as it can be used by tobacco companies to entice smokers and by governments to provide textual and graphic health warnings [1,2,3]. Behavioral economic models address such inconsistencies directly by including insights from psychology, focusing on, for example, self-control problems, time-inconsistent preferences and smoking cues Many of these models focus on decisions involving addictive goods such as cigarettes [23,24,25,26] and allow for smoking ‘mistakes’ and differences between planned and actual consumption. In other words, “sophisticated” smokers have an underlying demand for pre-commitment mechanisms and, in our context, the smaller pack of 10 cigarettes could serve as a commitment device to smoke less These smokers may use a rationing rule such as “never buy more cigarettes than 10 units at a time”, yielding that consumption at higher rates only occurs at the expense of incurring additional transaction costs [31]. In a series of experiments, researchers have found that a larger container (bag, bowl or plate) can increase the amount of food consumed, often without the individual recognizing the increased consumption (see e.g., [33, 34])

Methods

Results

Discussion