CONFERENCE PROCEEDING
Easier to afford, more likely to be smoked? Marlboro indices show higher cigarette affordability in the South and East of Europe
1
Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, Vienna, Austria
Tob. Prev. Cessation 2026;12(Supplement 1):A47
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND-AIM:
Price-related policies have been identified as the most effective and cost-effective tobacco control tool. However, cigarette prices vary widely across Europe and are difficult to compare, not least because of brand availability and income differences. Existing measures of tobacco affordability, such as Relative Income Price (RIP) and Minutes of Labor (MoL), are poorly suited to cross-country comparisons, as their results are distorted by differences in the purchasing power between countries.
METHODS:
We draw on the Big Mac Index, a well-known comparative measure of purchasing power, and its prior adaptations and applications to public health. Such research designs aim to compare the affordability of the product of interest (in our case, cigarettes) by comparing its price to the price of a relatively-standardised reference product, whose production costs can be expected to vary less across countries. We selected Marlboro, an internationally widespread tobacco brand, as our indicator of cigarette prices, with the price of bottled still water and eggs as our reference products. Price data on Marlboro cigarettes and the two reference products were collected from Numbeo for 2023-2024. Our sample covers 34 countries (including non-EU member states).
RESULTS:
Our Marlboro-Water and Marlboro-Eggs indices show that cigarettes tend to be most affordable in the South and the East of Europe, where consumers forgo a lower amount of the reference products by purchasing a pack of cigarettes, thus being less incentivised to reduce or quit their smoking use. We also find strong associations between our indices and smoking rates and (especially) tobacco tax rates in Europe.
CONCLUSIONS:
By expressing the affordability of cigarettes relative to widely used consumer goods, this study aims to shed further light on the well-established links between tobacco taxes, prices and consumption, highlighting the benefits of policies that aim to reduce cigarette affordability in an intuitive and more accessible fashion for policymakers and the wider public.
Price-related policies have been identified as the most effective and cost-effective tobacco control tool. However, cigarette prices vary widely across Europe and are difficult to compare, not least because of brand availability and income differences. Existing measures of tobacco affordability, such as Relative Income Price (RIP) and Minutes of Labor (MoL), are poorly suited to cross-country comparisons, as their results are distorted by differences in the purchasing power between countries.
METHODS:
We draw on the Big Mac Index, a well-known comparative measure of purchasing power, and its prior adaptations and applications to public health. Such research designs aim to compare the affordability of the product of interest (in our case, cigarettes) by comparing its price to the price of a relatively-standardised reference product, whose production costs can be expected to vary less across countries. We selected Marlboro, an internationally widespread tobacco brand, as our indicator of cigarette prices, with the price of bottled still water and eggs as our reference products. Price data on Marlboro cigarettes and the two reference products were collected from Numbeo for 2023-2024. Our sample covers 34 countries (including non-EU member states).
RESULTS:
Our Marlboro-Water and Marlboro-Eggs indices show that cigarettes tend to be most affordable in the South and the East of Europe, where consumers forgo a lower amount of the reference products by purchasing a pack of cigarettes, thus being less incentivised to reduce or quit their smoking use. We also find strong associations between our indices and smoking rates and (especially) tobacco tax rates in Europe.
CONCLUSIONS:
By expressing the affordability of cigarettes relative to widely used consumer goods, this study aims to shed further light on the well-established links between tobacco taxes, prices and consumption, highlighting the benefits of policies that aim to reduce cigarette affordability in an intuitive and more accessible fashion for policymakers and the wider public.
| eISSN: | 2459-3087 |
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