More Bad News for Smokers? The Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Labor Market Outcomes." NBER Working Paper 5270

ine the effect of smoking on wages. Their analysis controls for differ-ences in individual characteristics that may be correlated with both smoking and wages, including unobservable person-specific characteris-tics that are constant over time, and unobservable characteristics that are constant within a family. Estimates from alternative specifications indicate that smoking reduced wages by roughly 4-8%. Empirical tests of three potential explanations for this finding yield no conclusive results. S ince the release of the 1964 Surgeon General's report asserting that smok-ing causes cancer and other serious dis-eases, evidence of the adverse health ef-fects of smoking, both on smokers and on others who are exposed to cigarette smoke, has continued to mount. Over time, mil