Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of the public smoking ban which came into effect in Italy in January 2005 on individual smoking behaviour. Current empirical evidence supports the existence of a negative effect of the Italian ban on smoking prevalence and consumption in the general population. Our analysis shows that the apparent success of the ban is due to the fact that existing results do not take into account seasonal differences in smoking behaviour. Using quarterly data from the 1999/2000 and 2004/2005 Italian Health Surveys and adopting a difference-indifference approach that nets out monthly variation in smoking rates, we show that the Italian smoking ban had no impact on smoking behaviour for the population as a whole but only on some subgroups. This result notwithstanding, we find that the smoking ban increased the overall well-being of non-smokers.
Highlights
The increased awareness of the damage caused by tobacco smoking has led numerous countries to prohibit tobacco advertising and introduce partial or total bans on smoking in workplaces and—most recently—in all public areas
In this paper we investigate the impact of the smoking ban in public places introduced in 2005 in Italy on individual smoking prevalence and cigarette consumption
5.1 Estimates based on the before/after approach We show that if seasonal differences in smoking behaviour are not adequately controlled for, a before/after evaluation of new regulations on smoking behaviour will lead to incorrect estimates of the size of the effects
Summary
The increased awareness of the damage caused by tobacco smoking has led numerous countries to prohibit tobacco advertising and introduce partial or total bans on smoking in workplaces and—most recently—in all public areas. In this paper we investigate the impact of the smoking ban in public places introduced in 2005 in Italy on individual smoking prevalence and cigarette consumption. While we observe changes in smoking behaviour mainly among young women who are single or not employed, the welfare benefits are felt across larger sections of the population of non-smokers, including married individuals and those in employment This suggests that even though the ban had a limited effect on smoking prevalence and consumption, it might have changed smoking behaviour in a more general sense (when and where it is acceptable to smoke, for example), and this resulted in a significant improvement in general well-being
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