This paper describes the dynamics of smoking behaviour in Australia and investigates what role smoking ban regulation has, if any, on individual level smoking patterns. The main argument to motivate the introduction of tougher smoking bans is the effect of second hand smoke on non-smokers. From a public policy perspective it is important to know if these policies also affect if a person smokes, or if they only influence when and where people smoke. We use data that tracks individual smoking behaviour over the period 2001 to 2003 during which separate smoking ban initiatives in Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory came into effect. We exploit this variation over time and across states as a natural experiment to assess the impact of tougher smoking regulations. Our findings indicate that the introduction of smoking ban regulations on individuals' smoking behaviour has the expected sign but is not significant for most types of individuals. Interestingly, we do find a significant 'rebellion' effect amongst 18 to 24 year old smokers, with the introduction of smoking bans found to increase the likelihood that they continue to smoke.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.