Education, Information, and Smoking Decisions : Evidence from Smoking Histories, 1940-2000

Education, Information, and Smoking Decisions : Evidence from Smoking Histories, 1940-2000

The author tests the hypothesis that education improves health and increases people's life expectancy. Smoking histories-reconstructed from retrospective data in the National Health Interview Surveys in the United States-show that after 1950,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: de Walque, Damien
Format: Policy Research Working Paper
Language:English
en_US
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2013
Subjects:
ACCESS TO INFORMATION
ADDITION
AGED
BIRTH COHORT
CANCER
CIGARETTE SMOKING
COMPOSITION
DISEASES
HEALTH OUTCOMES
LATE TEENS
LIFE EXPECTANCY
LITERATURE
LUNG CANCER
MORTALITY
MORTALITY RISKS
NATIONAL HEALTH
OLDER PEOPLE
READING
SMOKERS
SMOKING
SMOKING CESSATION
SOCIAL SCIENCES
TOBACCO
TOBACCO CONSUMPTION
TOBACCO USE
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2004/07/4960322/education-information-smoking-decisions-evidence-smoking-histories-1940-2000
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13897
Description
Summary:The author tests the hypothesis that education improves health and increases people's life expectancy. Smoking histories-reconstructed from retrospective data in the National Health Interview Surveys in the United States-show that after 1950, when information about the dangers associated with tobacco consumption started to diffuse, the prevalence of smoking declined earlier and most dramatically for college graduates. More educated individuals are also more likely to quit smoking: incidence analysis of smoking cessation shows a strong education effect. The instrumental variable approach, which relies on the fact that during the Vietnam War college attendance provided a strategy to avoid the draft, indicates that education does affect decisions about whether to smoke or stop smoking.

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