Death and tobacco taxes

This article analyzes the effect of tobacco excise tax changes on mortality. Reduced-form regressions of mortality rates on tobacco taxes for the years 1954-1988, with controls for state, year, income, alcoholic beverage taxes, age distribution, and unobserved health trends indicate that tax increases lead to statistically significant decreases in smoking-related mortality. Evidence on the complementary relationship between alcohol and tobacco as it relates to health outcomes is also presented. A 10% increase in the tobacco tax is projected to save over 6,000 lives a year.