Testing Gateway Theory: Do cigarette prices affect illicit drug use?

Michael Beenstock*, Giora Rahav

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

53 Scopus citations

Abstract

We test the causal Gateway Theory of drug use dynamics by way of a natural experiment. We randomize cigarette smoking by birth cohort and cigarette prices. We use data for Israel to show that while cigarette smoking causes cannabis use, the evidence that cannabis use causes hard drug use is much weaker. These results are based on various econometric methodologies including two-stage logit (2SL), bivariate probit, and frailty analysis for survival data.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)679-698
Number of pages20
JournalJournal of Health Economics
Volume21
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2002

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