HEALTH RISK AND THE DECISION TO QUIT SMOKING

This study contributes to the understanding of the decision to quit sm oking by taking into account the learning of new risk information. The specific hypothesis tested is that smokers learn new risk information and hence create an incentive to quit from their own experience. Prob it models are estimated for the decision to quit smoking based on long itudinal data obtained from Taiwan. It is shown that health risk, meas ured by the observed change in health status over the period between t wo surveys, has a relatively substantial positive effect on the probab ility of quitting smoking. In addition, the results indicate that scho oling has a significantly positive effect on the probability of quitti ng. These findings are consistent with the predictions of a Bayesian l earning framework and suggest that the risk information obtained from individual experience, which is the sole source of information availab le to smokers in most developing countries, plays the same role that p ublic information does.