Blog
Lighting Up
9th December 2008
According to the World Health Organisation nearly two out of every three doctors in China smoke. The latest available figure is 40% in Russia, 8% in the UK and just 3% in India. I asked my economists if they could use economic ideas to explain this spread? There were some interesting answers - including information asymmetries on the impact of cigarette addiction, differences in social norms in countries, the impact of stress on decisions about whether or not to smoke. And also the impact of tougher regulations on smoking in the work place in countries such as the UK. What was surprising to me was so that few economists focused on variations in price and the affordability of cigarettes in each country - in particular the variance in indirect taxation on tobacco from nation to nation. But am I right in assuming that cigarettes cost more in the UK than in Russia and China?
World Health Organisation background on tobacco
Geoff Riley
Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for over thirty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD conferences in the UK and overseas.