Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/28214 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper Series in Economics No. 96
Publisher: 
Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Lüneburg
Abstract: 
This paper considers the impact of tobacco consumption on wages in the UK using data from fifteen waves of the British Household Panel Survey. Considering both overall smoker status as well as the number of cigarettes consumed, we provide estimates for the smoking wage penalty using standard regression methods, including panel estimators for fixed effects and panel instrumental variable estimators. Furthermore, we analyse the impact of stopping and starting to smoke relative to permanent smokers and non-smokers by Mahalanobis-matching. In the cross-section, we find a rather large wage penalty for smokers of about 4%. However, panel estimator and IV results show relatively few support for hypotheses linking the smoking wage penalty to either lower productivity of smokers, be it health related or not, or discrimination. Matching results suggest that starting or stopping to smoke does not affect later earnings relative to remaining either smoker or non-smoker.
Subjects: 
Smoking wage penalty
United Kingdom
discrimination
JEL: 
J31
J71
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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