Curbing the epidemic: governments and the economics of tobacco control

Below we reprint the excecutive summary of an important new report publishe d by the World Bank. This report has its origins in the converging efforts of several partners to address a shared problem: the relative neglect of ec onomic contributions to the debate on tobacco control. In 1997, at the tent h world conference on tobacco in Beijing, China, the World Bank organised a consultation session on the economics of tobacco control. The meeting was part of an ongoing review of the Bank's own control policies. There was cle ar recognition at this meeting that insufficient global attention was being paid to the economics of smoking-related deaths. The meeting's participant s also agreed that the discipline of economics was not being applied to tob acco control in many countries, and that even where economic approaches wer e being used, their methodology was of variable quality. At the same rime that the World Bank began reviewing its policies, economis ts at the University, of Cape Town, South Africa, had begun a project on th e economics of tobacco control for southern Africa. These initiatives were brought together, in partnership with economists at the University, of laus anne, Switzerland, and others, to form a wider review The work ei culminate d in a conference range in Cape Town in February, 1998. The proceedings of the conference have been published separately. (1) The collaboration led to a broader analysis of the economics of tobacco control, involving economis ts and others from, a wide range of countries and institutions;; This repor t summarises the findings of those studies as they, are relevant to policy- makers.