How Classy?, Read Article

In Beijing and Shanghai, I smelt much smoke and encountered many smokers at the 5 star hotels that I had the opportunity to visit.  While I stayed in a non-smoking room, my room was not smoke free.  With my recent encounter with elevated carbon monoxide levels in mind, I enjoyed reading this article about smoking trends in the United States.  Social interactions have become a major topic in modern economics focused on how a friend's choices might have a causal effect on my choices.

In the ongoing discussions of the segregation of the 1% and the 99%, what share of the 1% smoke?  What share are overweight?  What share live in polluted communities?  What % of the day do the 1% spend speaking to other members of the 1%?   How much of the choice of smoking is about group identity. After all, we smoke in public and reveal aspects of our personality through this public signal.  Do smokers prefer to hangout with other smokers?  Do many non-smokers like to hang out with smokers?   I know only 2 economists who sometimes smoke and I know hundreds of economists.

Smokers know that smoking isn't good for them.  Doctors plead with them to stop. There are nasty synergies between high blood pressure, diabetes and smoking yet many in this group keep smoking.  If all smokers stopped smoking, how much would aggregate health care costs fall each year?

In China right now, smoking rates are declining as the educated are sharply reducing their smoking rates relative to earlier cohorts.  For some evidence, read this.