Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California's Tobacco Control Program

Building on an idea in We discuss the advantages of these methods and apply them to study the effects of Proposition 99, a large-scale tobacco control program that California implemented in 1988. We demonstrate that following Proposition 99 tobacco consumption fell markedly in California relative to a comparable synthetic control region. We estimate that by the year 2000 annual per-capita cigarette sales in California were about 26 packs lower than what they would have been in the absence of Proposition 99. Given that many policy interventions and events of interest in social sciences take place at an aggregate level (countries, regions, cities, etc.) and affect a small number of aggregate units, the potential…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Award: 0350645
• AP
  American Political Science Association
• JH
  Johns Hopkins University
• IF
  Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University