Alan Mathios

• Cornell University

Economic research has long focused on illegal markets and the consequences of prohibitions. We provide a case study of the proposed prohibition of menthol cigarettes, which are smoked by almost 19 million people in the U.S. Illegal markets for menthol cigarettes could not only blunt the prohibition's intended consequence to reduce smoking but could...

Australia had adopted a novel approach to e‐cigarette policy by requiring a physician's prescription to lawfully obtain nicotine e‐cigarettes. We conducted an online discrete choice experiment to gauge how adult Australian smokers made hypothetical choices between cigarettes, prescription e‐cigarettes, non‐prescription e‐cigarettes and quitting. We...

We study the impact of an information shock created by an outbreak of lung injuries apparently related to e‐cigarettes. We use data from multiple sources: surveys of risk perceptions conducted before, during, and after the outbreak; an in‐depth survey on risk perceptions and vaping and smoking behavior; and national aggregate time‐series sales data...

More than 18.5 million current smokers in the United States usually smoke menthol cigarettes. The Food and Drug Administration recently proposed a tobacco product standard to prohibit menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes. We explore whether there are internality‐based market failures that provide an applied welfare economics rationale t...

Aims A warning on e-cigarette packaging is one way the U.S. government can inform the public of known harms of e-cigarette use. Currently, the only required warning on these products is: “WARNING: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.” This exploratory study aims to inform potential future investigations and FDA decisio...

E-cigarette use among youth presents a public health risk. Yet, cigarette smokers who substantially reduce their smoking or switch completely from traditional combustible cigarettes could benefit. As science about e-cigarettes is continually emerging, any potential warnings are likely to contain uncertain language. Hedged verbiage may impact decisi...

This study explored the effectiveness of nuanced messages, described in our study as warnings, that seek to convey the potential benefits of switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes for adults. The messages were designed to convey the potentially complex idea that e-cigarettes are likely less harmful than combustible cigarettes but that e-cigarett...

Warnings specifically focused on harm to younger users have been understudied in vaping warning research, even while vaping products may appeal specifically to a younger population through implicit advertising strategies. This study examined how youth and young adult-focused e-cigarette health warning messages and implicit advertising strategies in...

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) in reducing children's exposure to ads for candy and sweetened beverages. Methods: Survey data were used to determine the television programs that children watch and the time slots during which they watch televisi...

The study evaluates the success of an industry self‐regulatory initiative, the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI), designed to limit advertising of less nutritious foods to children that began in 2006 and implemented by pledging firms by 2013. We estimate the nutritional profile (calories, sugar, sodium, and fiber) of cerea...

The objective of this study was to estimate disparities in exposure to television advertising of sugar-sweetened and non-nutritive sweetened beverages among U.S. adults and teens. Data (2007–2013) came from the National Consumer Survey and included 115,510 adult respondents (age 18+) and 8635 teen respondents (age 12–17). The data was originally ac...

Introduction: Under the US Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the authority to implement graphic warning labels (GWLs) on cigarette packages. Neither the original labels proposed by the FDA nor the revised labels include a source to indicate sponsorship of the warnings. This study tests...

We study the impact of new information on people’s perceptions of the risks of e-cigarettes. In September 2019 the U.S. experienced an outbreak of e-cigarette, or vaping, associated lung injuries (EVALI). The EVALI outbreak created an information shock, which was followed by additional new information in a later CDC recommendation. We use data on c...

On the occasion of the 40 years anniversary of the Journal of Consumer Policy (SpringerNature), the editors share their view of the next decade's most important topics in consumer policy and law.

This paper tests how certainty conveyed through language can be harnessed to enhance the effectiveness of health risk messages. We conducted experiments with low-income, adult smokers (n = 317) and middle schoolers (n = 321) on pictorial cigarette warning labels. We manipulated hypotheticality of risk through verb modality: present tense, may, can,...

Introduction: Legal challenges have blocked the implementation of large, pictorial health warning labels (HWLs) in the U.S. In light of future legal questions the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may face in proposing alternative HWLs, we examined whether less restrictive HWL versions on the front of packs-smaller HWLs and/or text-only HWLs that...

Exposure to cigarette advertising can increase the likelihood of youth smoking initiation and may encourage people who already smoke to continue. Requiring prominent, graphic warning labels could reduce these effects. We test whether graphic versus text-only warning labels in cigarette advertisements influence cognitive and emotional factors associ...

Rationale: The United States courts have blocked the implementation of graphic warning labels on cigarette packages (GWLs). This decision was based, in part, on the premise that GWLs are unnecessarily emotional and are meant to scare rather than inform consumers about smoking's health effects. However, research in judgment and decision-making sugg...

The U.S. Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) of 2009 paved the way for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to propose nine different graphic warning labels (GWLs) intended for prominent placement on the front and back of cigarette packs and on cigarette advertisements. Those GWLs were adjudicated as unconstitu...

Introduction: Though the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) calls for the implementation of large graphic warning labels on cigarette boxes (GWLs), the courts have blocked the implementation of 50% labels in the U.S. We conducted an experiment to explore whether changing the size of GWLs is associated with changes in visual attent...

Consumers make many decisions that affect their health, not only about medical care but about diet, physical activity, alcohol, and cigarettes. Some pharmaceuticals and many health-related consumer goods are heavily advertised. We explore the economics of the advertising of cigarettes—a heavily advertised product which is consumed by 36.5 million a...

This study examines whether exposure to direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCAs) for statin drugs is associated with non-pharmaceutical behaviors to prevent cardiovascular disease. We focus on the relationship between statin drug DTCA exposure and the frequency of (a) visits to fast-food restaurants and (b) exercise. We combine data on the televised...

Three studies provide empirical, social scientific tests of alternatives to the originally proposed U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cigarette package warning labels on health risk beliefs, perceived fear, and effectiveness. Our research addresses questions at the root of the legal disputes surrounding FDA regulation of cigarette package war...

One reason that tobacco-sponsored smoking cessation ads are less effective than those sponsored by public health agencies may be that the persuasive arguments in tobacco-sponsored ads are inherently weaker than arguments made in public health ads. An alternate explanation is that sponsorship disclosure on the face of the ad activates resistance, pa...

This article reviews research on the economics of pharmaceutical promotion and advertising. The economics of advertising is a long-standing part of the field of industrial organization. The economics of pharmaceutical advertising is beginning to emerge as a separate subfield, at the intersection of industrial organization and health economics. The...

Many policy makers continue to advocate and adopt cigarette taxes as a public health measure. Most previous individual-level empirical studies of cigarette demand are essentially static analyses of the relationship between the level of taxes and smoking behavior at a point in time. In this study, we use longitudinal data to examine the dynamics of...

In this paper, we develop a new direct measure of state anti-smoking sentiment and merge it with micro-data on youth smoking in 1992 and 2000. The empirical results from the cross-sectional models show two consistent patterns: after controlling for differences in state anti-smoking sentiment, the price of cigarettes has a weak and statistically, in...

Health information drives crucial consumer health decisions and plays a central role in healthcare markets. Consumers who are better-informed about smoking, diet, and physical activity make healthier choices outside the healthcare sector (Kenkel, 1991; Ippolito & Mathios, 1990, 1995; Meara, 2001). Better-informed consumers also interact differently...

Although the prevalence of smoking has declined among US adults, an estimated 22.5% of the adult population (45.8 million adults) regularly smoked in 2002. Starting from this level, it will not be possible to achieve the Healthy People national health objectives of a reduction in the prevalence of smoking among adults to less than 12% by 2010 unles...

This paper examines the impact of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA) of cholesterol-reducing drugs (statins) on consumers' market and non-market behaviors. Our research builds up on the existing literature by utilizing a unique set of data sets that combine extensive survey data on statins use with an archive of advertisements that allow us to m...

We study the impact of smoking cessation product advertising. To measure potential exposure, we link survey data on magazine-reading habits and smoking behavior with an archive of print advertisements. We find that smokers who are exposed to more advertising are more likely to attempt to quit and to successfully quit. While some increased quitting...

We investigate how direct-to-consumer advertising of smoking cessation products is affected by Food and Drug Administration regulations. Because of their effectiveness, these products could be the key to meeting public health goals to reduce smoking. Our study period covers the evolution of the market as products are introduced while some of the ol...

This article uses a principal agent framework to examine the role that monitoring costs faced by an insurer have on health care utilization. We compare hospital lengths of stay for fee-for-service and capitated patients in low and high monitoring cost situations. Monitoring costs associated with a particular procedure are assumed to be high when th...

An increasing number of academic institutions are considering changing to Web-based systems to take advantage of efficiencies in the collection of end-of-semester course evaluations. In considering such a change it is important that researchers determine whether it will affect mean evaluation scores and response rates. We undertook this study in a...

To shed new light on the role private profit incentives play in promoting public health, in this paper we conduct an empirical study of the impact of pharmaceutical industry advertising on smoking cessation decisions. We link survey data on individual smokers with an archive of magazine advertisements. The rich survey data allow us to measure smoke...

We analyze data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to explore the relationships between high school completion and the two leading preventable causes of death %u2013 smoking and obesity. We focus on three issues that have received a great deal of attention in research on the pecuniary returns to schooling. First, we investigate whe...

The domain of consumer policy evolves over time in response to a variety of social forces, including unexpected tragedies and scandals, the actions of "issue entrepreneurs" and interest groups, new scientific knowledge, intensified media coverage, and changes in government philosophy or public opinion. The same applies to the domain of environmenta...

This study used weekly scanner data to determine within the milk market the factors that affect consumer choice of non-rBST and organic products and the implications for the development of niche markets. This was accomplished by first understanding what product attributes affected demand for milk and then determining how much consumers were willing...

In recent policy discussions, the conventional wisdom is that adolescent smoking is substantially more tax- or price-responsive than adult smoking.¹ In a previous study, we used data from the first three waves of the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) to estimate the impact of taxes and prices on smoking initiation during adolescence (DeC...

Recent waves of major longitudinal surveys in the US and other countries include retrospective questions about the timing of smoking initiation and cessation, creating a potentially important but under-utilized source of information on smoking behavior over the life course. In this paper, we explore the extent of, consequences of, and possible solu...

To investigate the reliability and validity of retrospectively reported information on smoking. Nationally representative retrospective data from longitudinal surveys and contemporaneous data from repeated cross-sectional surveys were used. Adult respondents to three of the four samples of the National Longitudinal Surveys Original Cohort 1966-68;...

Student evaluations are used by U.S. universities in virtually all disciplines, with these evaluations often being the most important and sometimes the sole measure of an instructor's teaching ability. In fact, departments of economics have relied almost exclusively on in-class, end-of-term evaluations as the measure of instructional product (Becke...

Preliminary draft prepared for the fifth international German Socio-Economic Panel User Conference (GSOEP2002), Berlin, July 3-4, 2002, and the 4 th European Conference on Health Economics, University of Paris, July 7-10, 2002. Please do not cite; comments welcome.

This paper reexamines whether higher cigarette taxes will substantially reduce youth smoking. We study the impact of taxes during exactly the period in adolescence in which most smokers start their habits. We find weak or nonexistent tax effects in models of the onset of smoking between eighth and twelfth grades, models of the onset of heavy smokin...

The use of illicit drugs by American youth rose dramatically during the 1990s. Reducing these trends is an important policy objective. However, for policies to be effective it is important to understand the key causal links that lead to substance use and abuse. Policy makers must understand whether attempts to reduce the demand for one drug have im...

The use of illicit drugs by American youth rose dramatically during the 1990s. Reducing these trends is an important policy objective. However, for policies to be effective it is important to understand the key causal links that lead to substance use and abuse. Policy makers must understand whether attempts to reduce the demand for one drug have im...

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) requires most food products to include a nutrition label. Prior to the NLEA, labeling was voluntary. This study uses nutrition label information and supermarket scanner data pre- and post-NLEA to examine the impact of moving from a voluntary to a mandatory labeling regime on consumer product choice. T...

The large differences in youth smoking behavior across ethnic and racial groups are often overlooked in debates about prevention. This study examines how the determinants of the onset of smoking vary by race and ethnicity. Academic success is strongly associated with lower smoking rates among white youth, but this is not as true for Hispanics and A...

In this paper, we develop an econometric model to estimate the impacts of Electronic Vehicle Management Systems (EVMS) on the load factor (LF) of heavy trucks using data at the operational level. This technology is supposed to improve capacity utilization by reducing coordination costs between demand and supply. The model is estimated on a subsampl...

The research in this article is designed to improve our understanding of alcohol messages embedded in prime-time television, especially when adolescent characters are shown portraying or consuming alcohol. Manifest and latent content analyses are used to assess the frequency of alcohol portrayal in prime-time television and the personality traits (...

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) prohibits health claims for foods containing more than a certain amount of fat per serving. This disqualified level eliminates health claims for cooking oils since these products have approximately 14 grams of fat per serving, above the acceptable threshold. However, a number of scientific studies ind...

The role of producers in disseminating information about biotechnology to consumers has been debated in policy circles. Prior to 1984 the U.S. prohibited firms from discussing any scientific relationships between diet and health in food advertising and labeling. The U.S. government changed its policy regarding health claims in advertising and label...

Biotechnology is a rapidly developing sector of the economy for coun­ tries throughout the world. This rapid development has led to heated debate over its risks and benefits. Advocates of biotechnology point to the potential benefits offered by products that promise to elimi­ nate disease, provide for more efficient diagnostic techniques, treatment...

The authors use manifest and latent content analyses to identify the nutrient profile of foods appearing on prime-time television and implied messages about these foods communicated through characters and settings. The sample consists of 276 prime-time television programs airing over a two-week period on four major network channels. Results indicat...

Most studies utilize consumer surveys or experimental data to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic variables and food choices. The author examines actual purchase behavior (supermarket scanner data) in the natural shopping environment. The author focuses on whether the propensity to purchase high-fat unlabeled products within a produc...

This paper analyzes trends in the production of foods that vary by fat and cholesterol content to assess whether information linking these food characteristics to disease risks affected consumers' food choices. It also examines whether the change in U.S. regulatory policy in 1985, which allowed producers to discuss the relationships between diet an...

Increasing empirical evidence indicates that consumers are incorporating information linking fat and cholesterol consumption to heart disease and cancer into their basic dietary decisions. The authors analyze food consumption data for individuals to determine which food categories were involved in the overall reductions in fat, saturated fat, and c...