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Severe health shocks provide new information about one's personal health and have been shown to influence smoking behaviors. In this paper, we suggest that they may also convey information about the hard to predict financial consequences of illnesses. Relevant financial risk information is idiosyncratic and unavailable to the consumer preceding illness, and the information search costs are high. However, new and salient information about the health as well as financial consequences of smoking after a health shock may impact smoking responses. Using variation in the timing of health shocks and two features of the US health care system (uninsured spells and aging into the Medicare program at 65), we test for heterogeneity in the post-shock smoking decision according to plausibly exogenous changes in financial risk exposure to medical spending. We also explore the relationship between smoking and the evolution of out-of-pocket costs. Individuals experiencing a cardiovascular health shock during an uninsured spell have more than twice the cessation effect of those receiving the illness while insured. For those uninsured prior to age 65 years, experiencing a cardiovascular shock post Medicare eligibility completely offsets the cessation effect. We also find that older adults' medical spending changes separate from health shocks influence their smoking behavior. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we exploit the progressive implementation of smoking bans in public venues at the state level in Switzerland to evaluate both the direct effects on smoking and the potential unintended consequences of these legislations on consumer behaviors as measured by visiting restaurants/bars and discos ('going out'). Our results indicate that public venue smoking bans in Switzerland reduce smoking rates, but the findings do not emerge until 1 year following the ban. This pattern of results is consistent with delays in ban enforcement on the part of business owners, difficulties in changing addictive behaviors such as smoking, and/or learning on the part of smokers. We find evidence that smoking bans influence going-out behavior and there is substantial heterogeneity across venue and consumer characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Between 1997 and 2007, smoking prevalence declined from 33% to 28% in Switzerland. Over the same period, funding for tobacco control activities significantly increased, resulting in the implementation of a large variety of national and regional interventions. In this paper, I exploit variation over time and across cantons of tobacco control expenditures to examine the impact of these policies on smoking decisions. I use retrospective smoking information from the Swiss Health Survey (2007) and find that tobacco control expenditures decreased the probability of smoking initiation among adolescents and young adults and increased cessation rates in the general population of smokers. I estimate that if funding had been kept at the 1997 level, there would have been 107,000 additional smokers in 2007. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]