No logos, no branding, but...

Michael Owen's blog piece on Saturday highlighted recent changes in smoking legislatiion in Australia, and noting the end of the branded cigarette packet. However, this hasn't meant a shift in favour of drab olive, or khaki packets.

The reality is slightly more gaudy, as this Al Jazeera clip demonstrates:

Australia Stops Branding Cigarette Packets

This strikes me as much more direct, but is it an example of government failure? Can MEDC governments really claim that smokers are not properly informed of the risks of smoking? Is it rational for consumers to smoke and risk shorter life expectancy?

All these issues merit evaluation when looking at the smoking issue.

Equally, think about applying elementary microeconomics to this sort of issue: if all packets are identical what might we infer about the PED for branded cigarettes. Yes, given a range of substitutes they are already highly elastic, but might this make them even more elastic?