Much Ado About Nothing? Smoking Bans and Germany’s Hospitality Industry

26 Pages Posted: 20 Apr 2010

See all articles by Michael Kvasnicka

Michael Kvasnicka

RWI Essen (Berlin Office)

Harald Tauchmann

Rhine-Westphalia Institute for Economic Research (RWI-Essen)

Date Written: March 1, 2010

Abstract

Over the last years, public smoking bans have been introduced in most European countries. Unlike elsewhere, in Germany such bans were introduced at state level at different points in time, which provides important intra-country regional variation that can be exploited to identify the effects of such bans on the hospitality industry. Using monthly data from a compulsory survey carried out by the German Federal Statistical Office, we study the short-run effects that these bans had on establishments’ sales. In contrast to the largely US-based literature, we find that smoke-free policies had a negative (yet moderate) effect on establishment sales. Closure rates of businesses in the hospitality industry.

Keywords: Smoking Bans, Sales, Intra-Country Regional Variation

JEL Classification: L51; I12

Suggested Citation

Kvasnicka, Michael and Tauchmann, Harald, Much Ado About Nothing? Smoking Bans and Germany’s Hospitality Industry (March 1, 2010). Ruhr Economic Paper No. 172, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1593026 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1593026

Michael Kvasnicka

RWI Essen (Berlin Office) ( email )

Hohenzollernstr. 1-3
Berlin, 45128
Germany

Harald Tauchmann (Contact Author)

Rhine-Westphalia Institute for Economic Research (RWI-Essen) ( email )

Hohenzollernstr. 1-3
45128 Essen
Germany

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