Public Policy and Youth Smokeless Tobacco Use

Much is known about the effects of prices and tobacco control policies on cigarette smoking, but little is known about their impact on smokeless tobacco use. This paper uses data from the Monitoring the Future Surveys, augmented with tobacco tax and policy-related measures, to estimate smokeless tobacco demand equations for young males. The estimates indicate that higher smokeless tobacco taxes would significantly reduce the number of young men using smokeless tobacco and the frequency of smokeless tobacco use. In addition, the estimates imply that strong limits on youth access to tobacco products reduce smokeless tobacco use by young males.     

Putting Out Fires: An Examination of the Determinants of State Clean Indoor-Air Laws

Although numerous studies have examined the effect of clean indoor-air laws on tobacco consumption, a handful of other studies have sought to address the demand for smoking restrictions. This paper adds to this body of research by using a random effects Probit procedure that controls for the endogeneity of cigarette consumption and cigarette taxes to estimate the determinants of clean indoor-air laws. By treating cigarette consumption and cigarette taxes as exogenous, we found that taxes complement smoking restrictions. However, when we accounted for endogeneity, the role of cigarette taxes shifted toward being a policy substitute. Results further revealed that the probability of a state adopting a smoking restriction is particularly sensitive to per capita cigarette consumption, political affiliation, metropolitan population, per capita income, and tobacco production.     

Do Adolescents with Emotional or Behavioral Problems Respond to Cigarette Prices?

Adolescents with mental health problems have much higher rates of smoking than those without such problems. Although a large body of evidence suggests that higher cigarette prices reduce smoking prevalence and the quantity smoked, little is known about the interaction between mental health or behavioral problems and tobacco consumption in the general population or among adolescents. Using a national representative sample of adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and employing validated psychiatric measures of emotional distress and behavioral problems, we estimate the price elasticity of cigarette demand for adolescents who have behavioral or emotional problems. The results indicate that these adolescents are at least as responsive to cigarette prices as adolescents with no emotional or behavioral problems.     

Dynamics of U.S. State Cigarette Consumption: Evidence from Panel Error Correction Modeling

This study uses state-level data for nearly four decades to study the dynamic demand for cigarettes, focusing especially on the long-run equilibrium relationship between cigarette consumption and its determinants as well as the short-run and long-run causal dynamics. We find the presence of cointegration with the long-run equilibrium, indicating the price elasticity of cigarette demand to be negative and inelastic, the income elasticity is positive and the border smuggling effects are significant, with substantial variations across individual states. Of the various smoking control policies considered, questions remain as to the effectiveness of aggregate anti-smoking initiatives that treat all states alike. Furthermore, the causal dynamics reveal bi-directional causality between cigarette consumption and its determinants. Some policy implications are discussed.     

Profiting from Smokers*

In the late 1990s more than 40 state attorneys general sued the major tobacco companies for the excessive medical costs imposed on the states by smoking. In November 1998 this litigation was concluded with the companies agreeing to pay approximately $9 billion a year, to be adjusted for inflation, in damages and lawyers' fees. The deal was incredibly corrupt; had it been made in any other industry it would surely have been declared illegal. And the tobacco companies were not the only bad guys in this story. The trial lawyers, the politicians, and even the public health officials and antismoking advocates who believed that any means were appropriate to achieve their desired ends of massive fees, political victories, and higher cigarette prices were the ones who most abused the system. W. Kip Viscusi, an economist and professor at Harvard Law School, focuses on the merits of the state tobacco litigation, principally whether the companies were guilty of inadequately communicating the risk of their products to smokers, which links to youth smoking, and the economic damages the states suffered because of smoking. Viscusi, who has worked on these issues for many years, was hired by Philip Morris to testify on these two topics in the litigation. Nevertheless, he makes a credible case on both issues. Viscusi is substantially less interested in the actual structure and implications of the negotiated deal and spends only a limited amount of time exploring the policy implications of today's tobacco politics, though he does spend a concluding chapter advocating improved information about tobacco for smokers.     

CIGARETTE DEMAND IN SOUTH AFRICA OVER 1996-2006: THE ROLE OF PRICE, INCOME AND HEALTH AWARENESS

The study seeks to re‐investigate the role of price, income and health awareness in the evolution of South African cigarette demand over the period 1996 to 2006. At first glance, rising cigarette prices appear to have played an important role in reducing cigarette consumption over the sample period, especially during the late 90s. But how dependent is the impact of price increases on general economic conditions and overall health awareness among smokers? Health awareness, in particular, has not received sufficient attention in the South African context, due to a lack of data. Previous estimates of price and income elasticities of cigarette demand are based on long annual time series data, which do not allow for changes in underlying tastes and preferences. The paper attempts to disentangle the forces of price, income, health awareness and policy intervention using a quarterly data set. In addition, the study also cautions against the upward bias in estimates derived from formal cigarette sales data – in the light of increasing illicit cigarette volumes in South Africa.     

Smoking for taxes: the triumph of fiscal policy over health in postwar West Germany, 1945–551

In the postwar period, the West German tobacco industry faced several challenges, not least competition from smuggled Virginia cigarettes. This reflected the Americanization of smoking tastes and threatened domestic tax revenue. The popular preference for ‘American blend’ cigarettes also hindered trade with Greece and Turkey, suppliers of Oriental tobacco to German manufacturers. The proposed solution was tax cuts to stimulate demand for domestically produced cigarettes. These proposals antagonized welfare groups, who saw tax cuts as a threat to the health of the population. The ensuing debates and settlement shed new light on the liberal smoking policies of postwar West Germany.     

The Intergenerational Consequences of Tobacco Policy: A Review of Policy's Influence on Maternal Smoking and Child Health

The response of pregnant women to tobacco policy is of particular interest due to these women being in a unique position to pass health capital to the next generation. By comparing estimates in the literature, we highlight that while pregnant women are responsive to taxes and taxes improve child health, their responsiveness has declined over time. We show that these trends reflect a compositional change; specifically, the least addicted smokers quit in the 1990s, leaving the pool of smoking mothers to be dominated by less price elastic smokers. Reviewing the literature on other tobacco policies, we show that a state‐level U.S. smoking ban has roughly three times the effect on pregnant women of a 10% increase in prices using elasticity estimates from more recent periods. Throughout this review, we identify areas for improvement in the literature and offer a number of ideas for future research projects.     

Access to paved roads,gender, and youth unemployment in rural areas: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

The poor development of road infrastructure is one of the main obstacles to economic activity and therefore to employment in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using cross-sectional data from 31 SSA countries, this study examines, from a gender perspective, the effect of access to paved roads on youth unemployment in rural areas in the region. The seemingly unrelated bivariate probit framework has been adopted in analysing the data. This approach is used for addressing the possible endogeneity bias that occurs when the dependent variable and regressor are both endogenous and binary. The major finding of this study reveals that access to paved roads in rural areas reduces the probability that young people will face unemployment. The aforementioned is more pronounced for young women than for young men. Moreover, the greater the proximity to the road increases, the greater its reducing effect on the probability of young people being unemployed. It is therefore important that the development of road infrastructure in rural areas be at the centre of public policies to address youth unemployment in SSA countries. This will significantly increase women's empowerment, through their participation in the labour market, and the full economic participation of young people.     

价格影响需求的随机间隔期库存模型

考虑价格影响需求和部分短缺量拖后引起的价格折扣对库存控制补充策略的影响,建立了一种价格影响需求的随机间隔期库存模型,对模型的最优解进行了分析,并针对正态分布的情况进行了测算和说明。分析结果表明,需求特性参数、补货间隔期分布区间等对库存控制影响较大,订货商（尤其是弱势订货商）在制定库存管理决策时必须重点考虑这些因素。     

人力资源的特性对构建人力资源会计模式的影响

随着社会主义市场经济的快速发展 ,卷烟批发价格指数作为经济预警信号之一 ,对烟草行业宏观管理及卷烟企业生产经营活动有着重要作用。本文从理论的角度对卷烟批发价格指数编制的方法作了初步探讨。     

采取网络型的政府市场供给模式应对房价问题

面对不断飙升的房价,从理论界到政策层面对其原因都有不同的解读,但从实践结果来看对房价的治理并不理想。本文在综合分析理论研究与国家调控政策的基础上,认为创新措施采取网络型的政府市场供给模式是解决房价过快上涨的有效途径。文章着重对这一模式进行了分析,并认为此举对缓解供需矛盾、解决市场的信息不对称、市场操控、改变预期、稳定房价等都有非常重要的作用。     

国家重点生态功能区产业准入负面清单制度配套人口政策研究

基于国家重点生态功能区产业准入负面清单制度,分析其对区域人口的影响以及相应配套的人口政策和改革路径。研究表明,产业准入负面清单实施将改变人口城镇化的经济驱动力、改变劳动力市场并加快人口迁移。配套人口政策的核心应为控制人口总量、促进人口迁移和城镇化、推动人口教育与扶贫。针对负面清单编制各阶段的特点和需求,配套相应的人口政策,综合使用强制性、激励性、指导型、信息型和服务型等多样化的人口政策工具。     

基于系统动力学的宏观调控政策对房地产价格影响研究

本文主要分析上海、重庆和武汉三个城市,将其商品住宅价格系统分人口、供应、需求、GDP和土地价格五个子系统,通过绘制存量流量图和因果回路图分析住宅系统与影响因素之间的关系,并通过调控税率、贷款利率及土地价格增长率等指标来进行单指标和多指标的政策性实验。结果表明:相同的调控政策应用于不同经济水平的城市效果不同;调整贷款利率对商品住宅价格影响较小,土地价格及税率对商品住宅价格影响更为显著。综合调控优于单一调控,政府部门可以同时进行综合调控稳定房价。     

Macroeconomic Effects of Commodity Price Shocks in a Low‐income Economy: The Case of Tobacco in Malawi

A major concern for developing economies is a dependence on commodities when their prices are volatile as a major change in the international commodity price can have important implications for economic growth. While some cross‐country studies exist, there is lack of country specific studies that take into account the different characteristics of low‐income economies. This paper contributes to the growing literature by considering the case of Malawi and the macroeconomic impact of price shocks in its major export crop of tobacco. Using a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) approach on quarterly Malawian data from 1980:1 to 2012:4, the paper establishes that a positive tobacco price shock has a significant positive impact on the country's gross domestic product, decreasing consumer prices and inducing real exchange rate appreciation. The results are robust to alternative specifications of a SVAR on difference stationary data and cointegrating VAR. The cointegrating VAR confirms the existence of a long run‐relationship among the variables and causality that runs from tobacco prices.     

Monetary Policy and Corporate Investment： Evidence from Chinese Micro Data

This paper investigates how a firm's characteristics restrict the influence of monetary policy changes on its investment behavior. Focusing on China's listed companies for a sample period from the first quarter of 2002 to the first quarter of 2011, we find that quantity‐oriented and price‐based monetary policies have heterogeneous impacts on corporate investment behavior, but the influence of monetary policies is constrained by the liquidity, inventory, size and asset–liability ratio of a firm. Firms with higher liquidity, lower inventory level and lower asset–liability ratios are less sensitive to the impact from two kinds of monetary policies. The larger the size of the firm, the less it is subject to influence from quantity‐oriented monetary policy; it responds more to price‐based monetary policy. The policy implication is that the monetary authorities should pay attention to the importance of policy‐making based on the monetary demand of microeconomic entities.     

中国房地产市场政策调控效果研究述评

中国住房市场货币化改革取得了丰硕成果,但也导致了房价的过快上涨,带来系列社会问题。为此,政府从财政、货币、土地等方面出台了大量调控政策,以期遏制房价过快上涨的势头,而国内学术界对于这些调控措施的实际效果也产生了激烈的争论。对此,文章对目前国内房地产市场调控效果方面的研究进行了系统的梳理,以期对调控效果做出全面、准确的判断,并指出未来研究中应关注的问题。     

政府调控、住房需求结构与住房价格：一个动态模型

垄断土地所有权的政府如果具有短期政绩目标函数,他们对土地的控制会使房地产预期价格具有不断上涨的下鞅性,这会提高住房的投机性需求。本文建立了一个住房价格动态模型,在住房价格服从下鞅性的条件下分析住房价格和住房需求结构的动态,发现并不是所有的初始点都会收敛到稳态均衡点,有些初始点会沿着一个稳定的需求结构不断推动价格上涨。对于这些初始点,政府的调控政策至关重要。我们在相位图中分析了政府各种调控政策对住房需求结构和房地产价格变动路径的影响,发现在所有的调控措施中,最有效的调控政策是通过改进土地产权制度来改变投机需求者的预期,减少住房投机需求,使价格收敛到一个较低的稳态水平上。     

从内需的角度看当前住宅高价对经济发展的影响及对策分析

当前,内需不足已成为中国经济进一步发展的主要制约因素。同时,近年来国内各地区的住宅价格持续攀升,致使城市居民背上了沉重的财务负担。本文以经济发展及产业理论为指导,从内需的视角出发,对当前国内住宅高价对经济发展的影响进行了分析,并针对住宅市场的政策及措施进行了分析和探讨。     

Cereal producers and the structural adjustment programme (SAP) in Ghana: A welfare analysis of the first decade of SAP

Small-scale food producers in Ghana produce about 90 per cent of the food in the country. Behaviourial patterns characteristic of these semi-commercial producers are complex, making it hard for policy makers to predict the consequences of policies on them. This study analyses the effects of the Structural Adjustment Programme on cereal producers in Ghana. A system of demand and supply equations was employed in a simulation analysis performed under three different scenarios to observe the aftermath of price increases; measure the impact of devaluation of the cedi; and gauge the effect of price increases and devaluation. The results show that cereal producers gain but consumers lose in terms of producer and consumer surplus. There is a net welfare loss as a result of the SAP.