We find that cigarette prices affect adult smoking behavior
in low- to middle-income countries and that they are likely
to do so through different mechanisms in lower-income
compared to higher-income countries. Specifically, we
estimate that higher cigarette prices prevent initiation in
our sample of LMICs, and increase cessation in our sample
of UMICs. Since current smoking rates are higher in
UMICs than in LMICs (18 vs. 24 % on average, respectively; Table 3), this differential price effect illustrates that
a policy to increase cigarette prices can target smoking
from different directions depending on the type of country
and its stage of tobacco epidemic: in countries where
smoking rates are relatively lower, prices may act by preventing rates from growing further, and in countries where
smoking rates are relatively higher, prices may act by
accelerating quitting.