Thirty years ago, in 1992, Economic professors Robert Tollison and Richard Wagner wrote The Economics of Smoking. They argued that because “people” thought that smoking was more dangerous than it actually was, it meant that there was no market (the system of private supply and demand) failure. Thus, people didn’t need to be warned about cigarettes or to have them regulated. They were right about the perception but maybe the policy prescription is wrong.
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Trust and Spin
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Thirty years ago, in 1992, Economic professors Robert Tollison and Richard Wagner wrote The Economics of Smoking. They argued that because “people” thought that smoking was more dangerous than it actually was, it meant that there was no market (the system of private supply and demand) failure. Thus, people didn’t need to be warned about cigarettes or to have them regulated. They were right about the perception but maybe the policy prescription is wrong.