RESEARCH PAPER
Price and cigarette consumption in Europe
1 Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche "Mario Negri", Milan, Italy
2 Cancer Prevention and Control Unit, Institut Català dOncologia, LHospitalet (Barcelona), Spain
3 Istituto di Statistica Medica e Biometria, Universita degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy
4 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London University, London, UK
5 Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Esteve Fernandez
MD, PhD, Cancer Prevention and Control Unit, Institut Català dOncologia, Av. Gran Via s/n, Km 2.7, 08907 LHospitalet, Spain; efernandez{at}iconcologia.net
Objective: To analyse the variation in demand for tobacco according to price of cigarettes across the European region.
Design: Cross-sectional study.
Setting: All the 52 countries of the European region.
Participants: For each European country, data were collected on annual per adult cigarette consumption (2000), smoking prevalence (most recent), retail price of a pack of local and foreign brand cigarettes (around 2000), the gross domestic product adjusted by purchasing power parities, and the adult population (2000).
Main outcome measure: Price elasticity of demand for cigarettes (that is, the change in cigarette consumption according to a change in tobacco price) across all the European countries, estimated by double-log multiple linear regression.
Results: Controlling for male to female prevalence ratio, price elasticities for consumption were 0.46 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.74 to 0.17) and 0.74 (95% CI 1.13 to 0.35) for local and foreign brand, respectively. The inverse relation between cigarette price and consumption was stronger in countries not in the European Union (price elasticity for foreign brand cigarettes of 0.8) as compared to European Union countries (price elasticity of 0.4).
Conclusions: The result that, on average, in Europe smoking consumption decreases 57% for a 10% increase in the real price of cigarettes strongly supports an inverse association between price and cigarette smoking.
Abbreviations: GDP, gross domestic product; PPP, purchasing power parities; TCCP, Tobacco Control Country Profiles; UICC, International Union Against Cancer; WHO, World Health Organization
Keywords: ecological study; cross-sectional study; demand; elasticity; health economy; smoking
![]()
CiteULike
Complore
Connotea
Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Fiore, M. C., Baker, T. B.
(2009). Stealing a March in the 21st Century: Accelerating Progress in the 100-Year War Against Tobacco Addiction in the United States. Am. J. Public Health
99: 1170-1175
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Westman, J., Martelin, T., Harkanen, T., Koskinen, S., Sundquist, K.
(2008). Migration and self-rated health: a comparison between Finns living in Sweden and Finns living in Finland. Scand J Public Health
36: 698-705
[Abstract] -
Leinsalu, M., Tekkel, M., Kunst, A. E.
(2007). Social determinants of ever initiating smoking differ from those of quitting: a cross-sectional study in Estonia. Eur J Public Health
17: 572-578
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
West, P., Sweeting, H., Young, R.
(2007). Smoking in Scottish youths: personal income, parental social class and the cost of smoking. Tobacco Control
16: 329-335
[Abstract] [Full Text]
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
