Orrin Hatch: “The CBO catalogued a wide range of elasticity and reports, ``Most findings are on the high side of the range.'' However…”

“The CBO catalogued a wide range of elasticity and reports, ``Most findings are on the high side of the range.'' However, the Congressional Budget Office next cites two studies based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey that found elasticities near zero. After summarizing the data for a series of studies, the Congressional Budget Office discussed a Cornell study that employed a longitudinal methodology as opposed to a cross-sectional analysis undertaken by most studies. It said in the Congressional Budget Office report, ``The participation elasticities that DeCicca and colleagues estimated for each followup were similar to those found in the cross sectional studies. The Congressional Budget Office considered roughly 0.5 to 0.70. However, they found that when children who were already smoking at the time of the first survey in the eighth grade were excluded from the analysis, the effect of price on the probability of starting to smoke by the 12th grade was essentially zero. Is the Senator aware of that?”