The Effect of the Recent Anti-Tobacco Policies on Curbing Smoking in Kazakhstan

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effects of recent tobacco control policies on smoking behavior in Kazakhstan. Exploiting data on cigarette smoking from the Global Adults Tobacco Survey (GATS) collected in 2014 and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) collected in 2011 and 2015, I examine the effectiveness of anti-tobacco policies using a two-part model. In particular, I analyze smoking participation and intensity separately for men and women. Due to differences in sample distributions across surveys, I implement Propensity Score Matching (PSM) to balance the data. My findings suggest that the recent tobacco control policies indeed reduced both smoking participation and intensity for men, but not for women.