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The empirical relationship between community social capital and the demand for cigarettes
Author(s) -
Brown Timothy T.,
Scheffler Richard M.,
Seo Sukyong,
Reed Mary
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.1119
Subject(s) - social capital , excise , marital status , economics , demographic economics , ethnic group , social status , index (typography) , social mobility , demography , socioeconomics , sociology , population , social science , world wide web , anthropology , computer science , macroeconomics
We show that the proportion of community social capital attributable to religious groups is inversely and strongly related to the number of cigarettes that smokers consume. We do not find overall community social capital or the proportion of community social capital attributable to religious groups to be related to the overall prevalence of smoking. Using a new validated measure of community social capital, the Petris Social Capital Index and three years (1998–2000) of US data on 39 369 adults, we estimate a two‐part demand model incorporating the following controls: community‐level fixed effects, price (including excise taxes), family income, a smuggling indicator, nonsmoking regulations, education, marital status, sex, age, and race/ethnicity. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.