Price and cigarette consumption in Europe

Objective

To analyse the variation in demand for tobacco according to price of cigarettes across the European region.

Design

Cross‐sectional study.

Setting

All the 52 countries of the European region.

Participants

For each European country, data were collected on annual per adult cigarette consumption (2000), smoking prevalence (most recent), retail price of a pack of local and foreign brand cigarettes (around 2000), the gross domestic product adjusted by purchasing power parities, and the adult population (2000).

Main outcome measure

Price elasticity of demand for cigarettes (that is, the change in cigarette consumption according to a change in tobacco price) across all the European countries, estimated by double‐log multiple linear regression.

Results

Controlling for male to female prevalence ratio, price elasticities for consumption were −0.46 (95% confidence interval (CI) −0.74 to −0.17) and −0.74 (95% CI −1.13 to −0.35) for local and foreign brand, respectively. The inverse relation between cigarette price and consumption was stronger in countries not in the European Union (price elasticity for foreign brand cigarettes of −0.8) as compared to European Union countries (price elasticity of −0.4).

Conclusions

The result that, on average, in Europe smoking consumption decreases 5–7% for a 10% increase in the real price of cigarettes strongly supports an inverse association between price and cigarette smoking.