Reply to Jonathan Gruber and Michael Frakes

Authors

Shin Yi Chou, National Bureau of Economic Research
Michael Grossman, National Bureau of Economic Research
Henry Saffer, National Bureau of Economic Research

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2006

Abstract

We address Gruber and Frakes's criticisms that (1) the state excise tax on a package of cigarettes is a more exogenous measure of the cost of cigarettes than the state-specific price of a package of cigarettes and (2) that it is preferable to control for the effects of unmeasured variables that vary over time with the use of time dummies instead of with a quadratic time trend. We also point out that our specification of the cost effect differs from theirs because we allow it to be nonlinear while they force it to be linear. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Publication Title

Journal of Health Economics

First Page Number

389

Last Page Number

393

DOI

10.1016/j.jhealeco.2005.12.004

Recommended Citation

Chou, Shin Yi; Grossman, Michael; and Saffer, Henry, "Reply to Jonathan Gruber and Michael Frakes" (2006). Kean Publications. 2594.
https://digitalcommons.kean.edu/keanpublications/2594