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The Earning Losses of Smokers Cover
By: Moiz Bhai  
Open Access
|Mar 2020

Abstract

Using within-family variation from twins and siblings, I find that smokers earn approximately 16% less than nonsmokers. Possible explanations for this earning difference are addiction-related productivity declines and earning reductions from higher health insurance costs. To investigate further, I use variation in the provision of employer-supplied health insurance (ESHI) to examine the mechanism of whether the addiction or insurance component has a larger influence on earnings. While I generally observe a larger earning penalty for smokers with ESHI than smokers without ESHI, the earning difference is statistically indistinguishable from zero.

Language: English
Published on: Mar 30, 2020
Published by: Sciendo
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 1 issue per year

© 2020 Moiz Bhai, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.