Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/306818 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
Quaderni - Working Paper DSE No. 1197
Publisher: 
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche (DSE), Bologna
Abstract: 
We propose a model of addictive consumption to study the demand for imperfect substitutes involving substances like alcohol, nicotine and opioids, as well as behavioral addictions like gambling and digital addiction. We study a 2017 Italian policy aimed at reducing gambling by limiting the number of available slot machines. Despite the reduction in slot machines, the policy produced an unintended 25% increase in net expenditure, particularly among low-wealth and low-educated individuals who also engage in other addictive behaviors. This result can be rationalized as the consequence of changes in self-control costs due to social contagion effects.
Subjects: 
Addiction
Gambling
Horizontal differentiation
Self-control
Slot machines, Temptation
JEL: 
I18
L43
L83
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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