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How far to the border? The extent and impact of cross - border casual cigarette smuggling.


by Lovenheim, Michael F.
National Tax Journal • March, 2008 •

<25 miles 3 1 Number with decrease

>25 miles 28 1 Average change in

distance 28.84 129.65 Standard deviation of

change in distance 162.81 158.5 Source: Author's calculation of distance to the closest lower-priced border state, excluding Native American Reservations. TABLE 4 ROBUSTNESS CHECK USING ALTERNATIVE ESTIMATION PROCEDURES Procedure Tax Burden (D) Tax Burden (L) OLS -0.5470 -0.6905

with robust VCE for (-3.59) (-3.20)

heteroscedasticity

with panel-corrected standard (-2.88) (-3.35)

errors

with robust VCE for (-5.43) (-6.57)

heteroscedasticity and

cross-sectional correlation FGLS (weighted on groupwise -0.5086 -0.6494

heteroscedasticity)

with robust VCE for (-3.83) (-3.89)

heteroscedasticity

with panel-corrected standard (-3.52) (-4.43)

errors

with robust VCE for (-3.54) (-8.00)

heteroscedasticity and

cross-sectional correlation DPD (difference) -0.6834 -0.8547

Arellano-Bond one-step procedure (-3.65) (-3.67) DPD (difference) -0.5341 -0.7684

Arellano-Bond two-step procedure (-1.74) (-2.16) Note: Coefficient estimates are boldface; t-statistics are reported in parentheses. Each estimation procedure estimates the same variable specification as column 2 of Table 3. The first set of OLS results repeats those results for comparisons sake. The respective estimation procedures are described in greater detail in the fourth section. TABLE 4 MEAN LOG CIGARETTE RESIDUALS FROM CIGARETTE DEMAND MODELS EXCLUDING SMUGGLING VARIABLES, BY DISTANCE QUARTILE

First Second Independent Variable Quartile Quartile Full log cigarette residual 0.005 0.003

(0.329) (0.334) Intensive log cigarette residual 0.004 0.0002

(0.176) (0.185) Extensive log cigarette residual 0.0003 -0.0001

(0.026) (0.035)

Third Fourth Independent Variable Quartile Quartile Full log cigarette residual -0.011 -0.005

(0.345) (0.359) Intensive log cigarette residual -0.008 -0.010

(0.191) (0.215) Extensive log cigarette residual -0.0005 0.0007

(0.031) (0.032) Notes: (1.) The table shows mean residuals from a regression of log mean MSA cigarette consumption on log home state cigarette price and mean MSA demographic characteristics by quartile of distance to a lower-price locality. Standard deviations are in parentheses. (2.) All regressions include fixed effects for each unique state-MSA combination and are weighted by the number of observations that constitute each MSA-level mean. MSA means of the following variables are included in the regressions: age, percent male, percent married, weekly wage, percent Black, percent Native American, percent Hispanic, percent Asian, percent high school diploma, percent some college, percent associates degree, percent BA, percent graduate school, percent working, and percent unemployed as well as a linear year trend. Full regression estimates are available from the author upon request. (3.) Home state cigarette prices are instrumented with home state cigarette taxes in all regressions. TABLE 5 MEANS OF SELECTED CPS VARIABLES FROM THE TOBACCO SUPPLEMENT SURVEYS BY YEAR Variable 1992-1993 1995-1996 Cigarettes per day (all) 3.25 3.01

(1.00) (1.07) Cigarettes per day (smokers) 16.91 16.60

(2.43) (2.84) Percent smokers 0.23 0.22

(0.05) (0.05) Real home state price 2.27 2.26

(0.25) (0.30) Price difference (without Native 0.21 0.26

American Reservations) (0.14) (0.24) Price difference (with Native 0.29 0.35

American Reservations) (0.19) (0.26) Real home state tax 0.48 0.54

(0.16) (0.23) Tax difference (without Native 0.14 0.21

American Reservations) (0.14) (0.19) Tax difference (with Native 0.24 0.30

American Reservations) (0.21) (0.23) Distance (without Native 89.56 91.74

American Reservations) (86.11) (87.43) Distance (with Native 65.88 62.95

American Reservations) (66.44) (63.07) Age 42.67 42.89

(2.37) (2.40) Percentage male 0.53 0.52

(0.03) (0.03) Percentage married 0.55 0.55

(0.06) (0.07) Real weekly wage 70.85 76.29

(43.80) (22.52) Percentage black 0.13 0.13

(0.11) (0.12) Percentage Native American 0.003 0.01

(0.01) (0.01) Percentage Hispanic 0.08 0.09

(0.11) (0.12) Percentage Asian 0.02 0.03

(0.03) (0.04) Percentage HS diploma 0.32 0.31

(0.06) (0.06) Percentage some college 0.18 0.19

(0.05) (0.04) Percentage associates degree 0.06 0.07

(0.02) (0.03) Percentage BA 0.14 0.16

(0.04) (0.05) Percentage graduate school 0.07 0.08

(0.03) (0.03) Percentage work 0.61 0.63

(0.06) (0.07) Percentage unemployed 0.05 0.04

(0.02) (0.02) Variable 1998-1999 2001-2002 Cigarettes per day (all) 2.59 2.29

(0.94) (1.00) Cigarettes per day (smokers) 15.77 14.83

(2.80) (2.82) Percent smokers 0.20 0.19

(0.05) (0.05) Real home state price 2.83 3.67

(0.41) (0.45) Price difference (without Native 0.31 0.35

American Reservations) (0.25) (0.27) Price difference (with Native 0.43 0.45

American Reservations) (0.31) (0.32) Real home state tax 0.63 0.68

(0.29) (0.32) Tax difference (without Native 0.26 0.28

American Reservations) (0.22) (0.22) Tax difference (with Native 0.40 0.40

American Reservations) (0.30) (0.31) Distance (without Native 93.02 98.94

American Reservations) (85.68) (96.92) Distance (with Native 67.91 74.41

American Reservations) (65.49) (80.95) Age 42.95 43.15

(2.51) (2.54) Percentage male 0.52 0.52

(0.03) (0.03) Percentage married 0.53 0.53

(0.06) (0.06) Real weekly wage 87.71 72.06

(26.74) (51.52) Percentage black 0.13 0.12

(0.11) (0.12) Percentage Native American 0.01 0.01

(0.01) (0.01) Percentage Hispanic 0.10 0.10

(0.13) (0.12) Percentage Asian 0.03 0.03

(0.04) (0.04) Percentage HS diploma 0.30 0.29


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COPYRIGHT 2008 National Tax Association Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Copyright 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.


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