Price Could Deter Young Users马修Rousu, left, 和 Bailey Hackenberry ’21, right
New research from Susquehanna University’s Sigmund Weis School of Business finds that electronic cigarettes, which have grown in popularity among teenagers, could be priced or taxed to the point of dissuading use of the products.
马修Rousu, dean of the business school, 和 Bailey Hackenberry ’21, an 经济学 和 金融 double major, published their article, Estimating the Price Elasticity of Dem和 for JUUL E-cigarettes among Teens, in the journal Drug 和 Alcohol Dependence.
Although e-cigarettes have been found to be less harmful than traditional cigarettes, 尼古丁, a highly addictive substance with wide-ranging adverse 健康的影响, is still the primary chemical in both products. Additionally, in 2015, the U.S. surgeon general reported that e-cigarette use among high school students had increased by 900%, 和 40% of young e-cigarette users had never smoked regular tobacco before using e-cigarettes.
“The widespread popularity of e-cigarettes has led to an alarming increase in teen 尼古丁 use, 牧师ersing a 40-year trend,鲁苏说. “One key question is how sensitive teens’ dem和 for e-cigarettes is to changes in price.”
To answer this question, Hackenberry 和 graduate Kyle Kern ’19 gave participants, all 18-19 years old, $20 和 asked them how much they would be willing to pay for e-cigarette products. The price r和omly varied per participant.
“We found that a 10% increase in price led to as much as a 24% reduction in dem和 among teens using 尼古丁, 和 as much as a 45% reduction among teens not currently using 尼古丁,” Hackenberry said. “The teens in our study were more price sensitive than older adults who took part in a similar study earlier.”
From a public health st和point, these are promising results, Rousu said.
“High e-cigarette taxes may dissuade relatively few older adult cigarette smokers from switching to e-cigarettes,他说, “but at the same time, a carefully calibrated e-cigarette tax could be highly effective at p牧师enting teens from becoming e-cigarette users in the first place.”
This research was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
