Does cigarette price influence adolescent experimentation?

The economics literature generally agrees that state and federal excise tax es can play an important role in deterring adolescent smoking. Teens' appar ent responsiveness to cigarette prices is puzzling, since the majority of a dolescent smokers do not buy their cigarettes. Teens typically do not begin to purchase cigarettes until they have developed an established pattern of smoking. Previous studies have not had adequate measures of smoking experi ence to explore whether adolescents' price responsiveness may vary by smoki ng experience. This paper uses data from a 1993 national survey of youth sm oking to explore this hypothesis. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.