Smoking within the Household: Spousal Peer Effects and Children's Health Implications

We study spousal peer effects on smoking and their implication for the health of children. Smoking decisions are modeled as equilibrium strategies of an incomplete information game within the couple. Using French data, we identify two peer effects: a smoking enhancing effect of smoking partners and a smoking deterring effect of non-smoking partners. An implication of these findings is that the smoking behavior may differ qualitatively in couples where both partners smoke and where only one partner smokes. This interpretation is supported by our finding that, controlling for total tobacco consumption of parents, the respiratory health of children is negatively affected only if both parents smoke.