‘Economische impactonderzoeken rammelen’
In een analyse die wij twee jaar geleden zelfstandig uitvoerden naar de kwaliteit van 106 onderzoeken over de economische effecten van rookverboden constateerden wij al dat er nogal wat afgerommeld wordt door de anti-tabakslobby om dergelijke effecten aan te tonen.
Deze bevindingen van Forces Nederland worden nu door een onafhankelijke bron bevestigd: het Engelse Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) analyseerde 33 van dergelijke onderzoeken, waarvan 26 door de anti-tabakslobby uitgevoerd, en kwam tot dezelfde conclusie: de meeste van de onderzoeken zijn door niet-economen uit de anti-tabakslobby uitgevoerd en rammelen van alle kanten.
We at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) have looked in detail at 33 major studies undertaken between September 1995 and April this year that have sought to quantify the effect of smoking bans and restrictions upon the hospitality sector in various countries, from Australia to North America.
Most of these studies — 26 — were either undertaken or supported by the public health or tobacco control sector. Only four were funded by the hospitality industry.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, all the studies backed by the public health/tobacco control sector fail to find a negative economic impact on the hospitality sector and those by the hospitality sector find such an impact in at least the pubs and bar sector.
However, a close look at the 26 studies published by the public health lobby on the impact of smoking bans shows that they do not prove the point they purport to make and commit many basic statistical and economic omissions and errors.
First, many of the studies apply estimates of the impact of smoking bans on restaurants — where the impact is likely to be low or possibly positive — directly to bars and pubs, where, because of different clientele and activity, the impact is much more likely to be adverse.
For instance, only about a quarter of the UK’s population smokes and smoking is already de facto banned in many restaurants, whereas up to half of bar and pub patrons smoke.
Second, some reports, such as the University of Aberdeen’s study last year for the Scottish Executive, apply the findings of reports carried out in other countries to their own locale, despite significant cultural and climate differences.
The Scottish Executive’s study was based entirely on reports from the US and Canada. Data on the effects of a smoking ban in Californian pizza restaurants, where even without a ban the level of smoking is very low, tell us very little about the effects of a similar ban on a pub in Glasgow.
A third common error of the studies is their tendency to look at whether overall sales in hospitality rise or fall after a ban, irrespective of what causes that change, rather than looking at sales lost as a direct result of the ban.
By doing this they ignore those other important factors that affect the economy and thus the (sensitive) hospitality sector — such as incomes and jobs rising or falling — and attribute any positive changes in the sector’s fortunes to the smoking ban.
Tobacco control lobby is blowing smoke (meerdere pagina’s)
