Smoking, Business Costs, And Social Cost

Abstract

Most of the attention surrounding claims that smoking imposes significant costs on the nonsmoking majority of American society has focused on the claims that (1) smoking reduces economic output due to earlier death and greater illness and (2) smoking ipso facto increases medical costs. In Chapter 4 we explained why losses in production that may result from smoking are borne by smokers and not by nonsmokers. In Chapters 5 and 6 we undertook the same examination with respect to claims about excess medical expenses.