The Effect of Anti-Smoking Media Campaign on Smoking Behavior: The California Experience

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of California anti-smoking media campaign in changing smoking behavior of adults and adolescents, in the short run as well as in the long run, through individual self-reported exposure to the media message. We construct pseudo panel data using repeated cross sections, and employ instrumental variables method to address the endogeneity problem. Overall, the results suggest that the anti-smoking media campaign not only significantly reduces the prevalence of smoking among adults and adolescents, but also brings significant long term benefits in smoking reduction, by inducing more future attempts to quit among adult smokers and deterring more initiating intentions among adolescents.