Tobacco Control Policies and Smoking Cessation: A Cross-Country Analysis of Men

We adopt a life course perspective to study smoking behavior in Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and the United States. Given their different mixes of policies, it is intriguing that the cross-sectional prevalence of smoking in Great Britain and the U.S. is similar, while in Germany rates are higher and in Russia men’s smoking rates are very high. Our results suggest that the similarity between British and U.S. smoking prevalence masks large differences in smoking cessation. The very high smoking prevalence among some cohorts of Russian men reflects both high smoking initiation and an almost total lack of smoking cessation