Estimating demand for alternatives to cigarettes with online purchase tasks.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To explore how advertising affects demand for cigarettes and potential substitutes, including snus, dissolvable tobacco, and medicinal nicotine.

Methods

A Web-based experiment randomized 1062 smokers to see advertisements for alternative nicotine products or soft drinks, then complete a series of purchase tasks, which were used to estimate demand elasticity, peak consumption, and cross-price elasticity (CPE) for tobacco products.

Results

Lower demand elasticity and greater peak consumption were seen for cigarettes compared to all alternative products (p < .05). CPE did not differ across the alternative products (p ≤ .03). Seeing relevant advertisements was not significantly related to demand.

Conclusions

These findings suggest significantly lower dem

SUBMITTER: O'Connor RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3776309 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature