Pharmaceutical Drug Regulation and Mortality: The peculiar case of e-cigarettes
Our study estimates social surplus effects of drug regulation in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration declared e-cigarettes as an unapproved smoking cessation drug, but a 2009 federal law change stymied these efforts and allowed e-cigarettes to be unregulated federally for ten years. We show evidence from patents that this lack of regulation spurred substantial innovation in the e-cigarette marketplace. Using restricted-use mortality and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, we estimate event studies that exploit demographic variation in smoking rates. Our results imply that e-cigarette introduction and subsequent “escape” from being regulated as a drug saved 1.7 million life years from 2007 to 2019, whereas we do not observe mortality benefits of smoking cessation drug introduction or change to over-the-counter status. E-cigarette introduction also reduced smoking.
Speaker Profile
Dr. Pesko's research identifies the effects of health policy changes by combining economics reasoning, causal research methods, and survey and administrative data sources. He has published 75+ peer-reviewed papers, including over 20 e-cigarette policy evaluation papers. His research has been awarded approximately $10 million in funding. Current research funding supports evaluating e-cigarette policies and health insurance mandates for hearing aids and cancer prevention/detection services.
Weekly seminar series
For further information on our seminar series, please contact shannon.stanwell@monash.edu
Event Details
- Date:
- 6 March 2024 at 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
- Venue:
- Caulfield campus, Building N, Level 1, Room N1.08
- Categories:
- CHE Seminar; Health Economics
Description
Our study estimates social surplus effects of drug regulation in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration declared e-cigarettes as an unapproved smoking cessation drug, but a 2009 federal law change stymied these efforts and allowed e-cigarettes to be unregulated federally for ten years. We show evidence from patents that this lack of regulation spurred substantial innovation in the e-cigarette marketplace. Using restricted-use mortality and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, we estimate event studies that exploit demographic variation in smoking rates. Our results imply that e-cigarette introduction and subsequent “escape” from being regulated as a drug saved 1.7 million life years from 2007 to 2019, whereas we do not observe mortality benefits of smoking cessation drug introduction or change to over-the-counter status. E-cigarette introduction also reduced smoking.
Speaker Profile
Dr. Pesko's research identifies the effects of health policy changes by combining economics reasoning, causal research methods, and survey and administrative data sources. He has published 75+ peer-reviewed papers, including over 20 e-cigarette policy evaluation papers. His research has been awarded approximately $10 million in funding. Current research funding supports evaluating e-cigarette policies and health insurance mandates for hearing aids and cancer prevention/detection services.
Weekly seminar series
For further information on our seminar series, please contact shannon.stanwell@monash.edu