The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 65 - Conclusions

 Overview of previous posts here

It is clear all the economists were fully aware they worked with the Tobacco Institute. Yet still I think it is possible when joining the network, some of the economists presumed they were sought to nothing but expressing their worldview. They were part of one big corporate conspiracy though, even if in the beginning not all of them might not have realized this themselves.

The tobacco industry used and exploited the libertarian bias of the economists. And the industry knew they would write the conclusions wanted by the industry. Before even contacting one, the industry was sure it would find a guy concluding taxes are evil, and that guy would be publishing it in a journal. It's not hard to find out why the industry was so sure: libertarians always conclude there shouldn't be taxes or tax-increases. The industry simply exploited their predictability.

George Berman's testimony in court shows the tobacco industry exploited Robert D. Tollison's libertarian bias to recruit him. The Tobacco Institute never told Tollison he needed to defend the tobacco industry. Instead, they fed him arguments so Tollison would come to that conclusion. in the words of Berman "we had focused a leading economist's mind on this particular problem and he was now able to be a spokesman for the solution he had come up with". Question: independently ? Berman's answer: "independently".

Of course Berman's answer "independently" isn't entirely correct: the industry fed his bias, and by doing so has been able to alter his mindset, picking up the tobacco issue. While Tollison indeed may have concluded for himself taxing is evil, his conclusion wasn't entirely independent.

The extremist worldview of the economists is obvious, and as shown even the industry sometimes had doubts on this worldview, afraid it could harm the industry being associated with people attacking tax-increases with op-eds like the one by Cotton Maher Lindsay titled excisetaxes: fascist finance, effectively comparing tobacco excise taxes to the practices of Italian fascism under dictator Benito Mussolini. A bit far-fetched, no? 

Or what to think about thois one; Tollison and Wagner writing the op-ed scientific integrity consumed by anti-smoking zealotry.  The same year the corrupted Tollison wrote a letter to the editor stating

Do remember this was written by a man heading a corrupted network, earning him well over 1 million dollars. Shameless. 

Yet at the same time, the extreme views are exactly the reason the economists were recruited. As shown, Philip Morris was interested in Dwight R. Lee *because* he was an extremist, writing giving the EPA authority over indoor air "would be likegiving a machine gun to a child".

The industry never asked Lee to take such positions. Whatever a scientific viewpoint is, there will be always be a deluded naysayer. The industry's tactic, seen in all the headhunting documents, is always showing the same pattern; the industry deliberately searches for nutcases, then giving them lots of money and making sure they receive media attention. To the laymen, the illusion then arises these extremists ' viewpoints might mean there actually is a scientific discussion. This is the doubt the industry wanted to create, because many people think when two different opinions exist, both must have some merit; Quod non, one can be completely wrong.

Were the economists corrupt ? Were they lobbyists, or just a pragmatic free-marketeers: was libertarianism the motivation driving the economists ? Or were they really for sale ? The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library doesn't provide a clear answer to these questions. Ultimately, it depends on the definition of corruption: the first thing we think of hearing the word probably will be: people doing or telling things they wouldn't do if not being paid.

Following that definition, it is clear some economists were probably dishonest: they signed things they  knew were flawed (Poulson), or lied being independent citizens (Militello). But this necessarily mean they defended work they did not believe in at all.

There's also another form of corruption: people being paid to tell ... exactly the same thing they would be saying if they would not receive money. In the case of the economists, I think it's clear that if they would not have accepted money from the tobacco industry, they still would be objecting any form of taxation.

This form of corruption isn't so much about whàt they said, but what they did not say. The website ScienceCorruption.com has done a tremendous job looking at the activities of the social cost consultants, giving a chronological order of the documents regarding the individual members. In 2011  Dominick Armentano wrote an error loaded reply (at the bottom of the page) addressing one strawman after another.

I guess the most interesting part in Dominick Armentano's reply, is the mere fact Armentano thinks his actions are defendable.

His answer misses a couple of points. ScienceCorruption's reply summarizes the entire problem with the activities of the network:

And those five points imply that every member of the network who ever delivered any output for the industry was corrupt.

Some economists seem to never have produced anything for the industry. But they accepted to join a network knowing they would be working for the industry. And several economists in the network accepted they would testify if being asked so by the industry. The fact some were never asked to testify, doesn't alter the fact they accepted to deliver testimonials if they would be asked to. It might not have been illegal (I don't know the american legal system), but it is clear there are some moral problems with their activities.


Further Research

Even though this series of blogposts isn't exactly short, there's much more to add to the tale of social cost and the economists network.

I have not fully explored the fact so many economists belonged to just two universities (George Mason University and Clemson University). What exactly was the role of GMU and Clemson ? Were these university aware of their activities ? What's the connection between the think tanks and GMU, the connection with the libertarian foundations, etc.

Another open question is how the economists ended up in think tanks. Did they join voluntarily ? Were they asked ? Is it coincidence they all ended up in the same think tanks, while there are literally dozens of right wing / free market think tanks ? Were some think tanks obliged by the industry to take the economists aboard ?

The 1984 Excise plan indicates the industry did not just want economists, but also wanted to recruit lawyers. We know there were attempts to create the network, but was it ever fully established ?

What was the role of the people "not on PM's list" ? Why does this document carry this strange heading? Were there other fully developed networks ?

We know some economists dropped out the network, but don't always know why. It is clear some were sacked, but were there any network members whose conscience came to play ?

On top of that, I'm pretty sure i did not discover all documents in the LTDL: the documents in the LTDL have been scanned and automatically converted to text, but the conversion sometimes failed, with letters getting switched etc. p. ex. Tollison can be found in the database as Tollison, but also Tol!ison, Toiison, Tollis0n, etc... This makes it difficult to find the right search queries...

One thing is clear: lots of questions remain unanswered...

The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 60 - Alexis de Tocqueville Institution

Overview of previous posts here

The previous blogpost mentioned in 1994 the Independent Institute authored the open letter against the Clinton Health Reform Plan. But the Independent Institute was not the only think tank aiming to work with the tobacco industry. 

The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution invited itself to the industry in this letter to Philip Morris. Was AdTI at this point no pro-tobacco ? Probably not, the letter illustrates it all started with a remarkably one-sided and bit silly opposition against the tax-increase in the health reform plan. Thos one-sided viewpoint ultimately would become disastrous for the think tank. 

Tim Lambert wrote a blogpost in 2004 (The Astroturf de Tocqueville Institute) showing the AdTI indeed started working with the tobacco industry in the 1990's.


The S. Fred Singer report

In 1994, late S. Fred Singer, best remembered as climate pseudo-skeptic, authored the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution report Science, Economics, and Environmental Policy: A Critical Examination. This report probably was ordered by the tobacco industry.

Early 1994, Cesar Conda, then president of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, had not decided yet who would author the paper (is not it lovely they already know what the report would conclude, without even knowing who would be the author?). Het wrote this remarkable letter: 

The letter summarizes the corruption of this think tank: fake report, fake endorsements, wide press circulation. And all that for just $20.000

The letter also shows the focus was no longer only to attack regulations on tobacco, other environmental subjects would be thrown under the bus too. And indeed, it is in the pool of different American extremist conservative industry funded think tanks that organized global warming denial would finds its roots.

The letter summarizes the corruption of this think tank: fake report, fake endorsements, wide press circulation. And all that for just $20.000

A while later, Conda wrote another amazing letter



Clearly: this report was as corrupted as a report can be.

The report contains the following passage:



No, the report does not mention Tollison's connections with the tobacco industry, nor the fact the industry indeed paid the AdTI the $20.000 for the report

No, the report does not mention Tollison's connections with the tobacco industry, nor the fact the industry indeed paid the AdTI the$20.000 for the report. All in all, it's not even that much money and from the industry's point of view, this must have been a bargain to corrupt a think tank for an amount of money lower than an add campaign in a newspaper

In the draft version S. Fred Singer was named the first author and Kent Jeffreys the second author. It is unclear why Singer is listed as the reviewer (and not author) in the final report and why suddely Jeffreys "authored" the report.

The industry wanted to use the report for lobbying, that much is certain





The report had the desired result. Samuel Chilcote, president of the Tobacco Institute reported

Who those "peer reviewers" were is a mystery, but probably the 1994 advisory board of the AdTI gives a clue: with Gary M. Anderson, Jeffrey R. Clark, Robert B. Ekelund, Dwight R. Lee, Mark Thornton, Robert D. Tollison, Richard K. Vedder and Richard E. Wagner, eight of the nineteen board members were members of the economists' network. Probably they were the not so critical reviewers of the report.

In 1995 the AdTI published another excise tax report, this time not by the economists though, but by John E. Berthoud, president of the National Tax Payers Union.

In 1998, the AdTI's draft report Tobacco Smuggling: A Worldwide Phenomenon was sent to the tobacco industry.

This is not the work of an independent think tank.

The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 54 - Working with Think tanks

 Overview of previous posts here

Tobacco Employee Roy Marden was one of the tobacco employees responsible for the communication with think tanks. He wrote the following memo, titled Tobacco Strategy on the think tanks he was responsible for (the industry divided the think tanks between a couple of its employees)

(...) (the document is 6p. long)

The tobacco industry sought the help of right-wing think tanks to fight excise taxes.

In 1995, the Tobacco Institute sent a memo, mentioning that the economists still were able to provide op-eds in no less than 30 states. The same memo illustrates how the industry worked with the different think tanks

A similar document was written in 1998, most likely by Roy Marden. Notice how long the list is. It no longer only mentions thinks tanks, but many journalists, and even an actor and a magician (???). It's not clear why the document mentions Dwight R. Lee and Walter Williams, but it is possible Marden was not aware of their membership in the social cost economists network. Do also notice he mentions he's on the board of the Heartland Institute. 

[ETC, the list is a couple of pages long]

While there always have been contacts between the industry and think tanks, and they worked together since at least the 1980's, it was only in the 1990's that the industry's involvement would become so pervasive that one could say the industry 'owned' some of these organizations.

In the long run, think tanks probably were much more powerful allies than a secret network of economists ever could have been.

S. Fred Singer wrote his infamous Alexis De Tocqueville Institution's tobacco-paper in 1994 (see further), with Robert D. Tollison helping him. Tobacco economists were working with the Heartland Institute since at least 1991. The Independent Institute was was joined by many members of the economists' network. In 1994, Tollison and Wagner became members of the Independent Institute's advisory board.

The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 51. Robert D. Tollison working for Philip Morris

Overview of previous posts here

Tollison working for Philip Morris

In 1988 Tollison wrote the book Clearing the Air for Philip Morris. How he was recruited has not been discovered.

On top of that, in 1994 Tollison also started testifying for Philip Morris (WRO = Washington Relations Office)

In 1997, Tollison agreed to write a rebuttal to a study on the economic effects of a smoking ban in Hungary

All this on top of his work for the Tobacco Institute, British American Tobacco, other industries, and of course his regular job.

The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 50. Robert D. Tollison working for British American Tobacco

Overview of previous posts here

Robert D. Tollison working for BAT

In 1993, Tollison and Wagner wrote the 30 page paper Who Benefits from WHO?: Decline of the World Health, commissioned by British American Tobacco as the company needed a writer to attack the WHO

Tollison accepted and made following proposal

BAT's Sharon Boyse refused the offer

The LTDL is quite complete this time, so we know Tollison’s answer

Tollison later musthave changed his mind and refused to use Dietrich's material

The report indeed would get published by the UK thinktank Social Affairs Unit. But this memo shows Tollison sent the draft to BAT, not Digby Anderson or the Social Affairs unit, illustrating the SAU was not involved in writing the piece

Sharon Boyse replied thefollowing day

Digby Anderson was kept out of the entire process leading to the report. Boyse told Tollison on May 21 he should contact Anderson. July 7, Tollison wrote

Was the paper ordered by BAT or the Social Affairs Unit? It is difficult to be certain, but this memo indicates it might actuallyhave been ordered by Anderson, even though why Digby Anderson was in Venezuela at the time is not explained.

Tollison must have started working for BAT in 1993, participating in media tours abroad. The tours seemed to have been a joint effort with Philip Morris. Why he also started working for BAT is not clear. Perhaps because the 1991 budget cut caused the TI to stop paying for Tollison's first class airline tickets

Media tours for BAT attended by Tollison	Country
1992 November 23	Venezuela
1993 October 6	South Africa
1993 October 12	India
1993 October 16	Pakistan
1993 October 19	Sri Lanka
1994 May 25	Australia

In Australia, Tollison may have testified in front of the AustralianParliament

The corrupted tobacco economist network, Part 48 - How much did they earn ?

Overview of previous posts here

How much did the economists earn ?

An incomplete overview of payments will be given in the appendix (to be published at the end of this series). The list with invoices is far from complete, but the LTDR contains millions of pages, and every single document cannot be checked. This survey has found invoices worth $1.56 million (without expenses like airplane tickets, hotels, ...).

It is surprising how detailed these invoices are, and how the economists let the industry pay for every little thing, even a 0.23 US$ phonecall in an invoice sent by R. Morris Coats

Robert D. Tollison was one busy guy

Tollison and Savarese sent so many invoices to the Tobacco Institute, they sometimes got confused




The Anna in the above letter is Tollison's wife Anna who became an employee of James Savarese and Partners, the consultancy firm controlling the economists network. The LTDL shows Anna did not work for free.

Robert Tollison worked for more industries as well as the Federal Government, as listed in his CV (do notice there's no end date given for his work at the Tobacco Institute)



Tollison was one busy guy. The industry noted in 1987



How Tollison was able to combine all these efforts with his work at GMU is an open question.

The corrupted tobacco economist network, Part 46 - towards the end of the network.

Overview of previous posts here

Towards the end of the network

The industry kept working with economists throughout the 1990's. The same activities as explored iextensively in previous blogposts continued: attending conferences, writing op-eds, appearing at testimony, etc. As there's not much new too learn, I will not go into detail.

Until roughly 1992 the LTDL documents many activities. After that, it becomes increasingly difficult to find anything substantial, and many network members suddenly disappeared from the files. One is money (we'll another reason at the end of this post)

In 1991 the Tobacco Institute faced a budget cut of 1.1 million US$, so one reason is the institute had to downsize certain activities:

(...)

The summary of a June 26, 1991 meeting are revealing the industry did not just improvise and the "that the heart of the current program is the consulting economists who produce the studies, get them published and promote them in academic circles"




(...)

Also in 1991, Tollison and Wagner published their last tobacco book The Economics of Smoking. It is clear the budget did not increase

The same document shows that year the industry had already spent $16,290 and only had a budget of $19,710 left. In the late 1980's the industry had paid the tobacco economists $15,500 to appear at one convention, so the 1992 budget in comparison was minimal. 

Further, around that time, the Tobacco Institute wrote many memoranda complaining about 'going over budget' (not just for the social cost economists), showing the budget cut must have really hurt the Institute. From 1985 to 1991 the economists appeared at economic conferences, but not afterwards.

Many of the original members were dropped around 1991/1992, leaving only an ever smaller core group. The "tax hearing witnesses" list was decreased from an economist in every state to just three economists: Robert D. Tollison, Richard A. Wagner and Dwight R. Lee

In 1993, the Tobacco Institute still suffered from the decreased budget, leading to the Tobacco Institute demanding a new contract with James Savarese





Even though the network kept delivering material until at least 1998, this letter probably marked the final turning point in the functioning of the network. The letter to Savarese was written on the same day as a document announcing the Tobacco Institute's 1994 budget would decrease another 62%

Some members of the network started working for the individual tobacco companies, such as Philip Morris (e.g. Walter E. Williams), R. J. Reynolds (Richard Wagner, from 1994). Tollison on his side started working for British American Tobacco in 1993. The economists may have been too expensive for the reduced budget

Still, in 1994 the Tobacco Institute budgeted $102,000 - $194,000 for the activities of Tollison, Wagner and Lee

From about 1993, the industry shifted to using think tanks (especially the Independent Institute - this will be explored in future blogposts) instead of directly ordering reports from the economists. But it was not the end of the network yet, as the economists still wrote op-eds, and Tollison and Lee still appeared at hearings.

The Tobacco Institute sent a memo in 1995 mentioning that the economic consultants still were able to provide op-eds in no less than 30 states and effectively the economists started organizing an op-ed campaign against FDA-regulations, with 17 economists trying to get published, including a new names (Lowell Gallaway). The industry once again pressed its agenda, and suggested to write on




In 1996, not 17 but 20 op-eds were sent to newspapers. In 1998 the last new name that could be found appears: Gary D. Ferrier wrote an op-ed that year, but there is no indication he ever was formally recruited. His name appears in exactly five documents.

Yet still, despite this last joined effort in 1995 and continued recruitment of new authors, the impression remains after 1992/1993 things went steeply downhill. The sparse documents show a network with less coordination

After some years of legal actions, in 1998, the US government reached the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. More and more whistleblowers were explaining industry methods, the industry realized it would face trial long before 1998, and knew the authorities would be uncovering the lobbying-tactics and people used by the industry.

It is nearly impossible to find anything relevant to the economists network in the LTDL from 1995 onwards and the documents often stopped giving names. The first attempts to hide names started around 1995, until the 1998 Settlement, after which the industry systematically stopped using names. From that point on, it is impossible to trace the network. In 1995 Savarese and Tollison wrote another proposal for the Tobacco Institute though, proposing several studies, op-eds etc. Amongst the proposals was a $27,500 report that would conclude that a Rand Corporation study in JAMA overestimated the social cost of tobacco. Of course, they knew their conclusion before actually conducting the research.

The early documents always carried the names of the economic consultants and overview of whose op-eds were published, but in 1998 James Savarese simply wrote "payment of $22,000 for "Consulting Services - Op-Ed Project - 1st of 2 payments".

Unlike the documents from the 1980's the invoice does not mention a single name. While the document overviews the published op-eds, it does not mention the names of the authors, only the university where the op-ed was written. Only through the older documents is it still possible at times to link the university with the author. Yet it is clear the Savarese memo differed strongly from those from the 1980's. Remember the 1987 audit, and the industry complaining Savarese withheld some names from the industry? The industry was aware it was under scrutiny in and started culling names...

Even though the network of economic consultants vanished from the LTDL, it seems it did not really cease to exist, but rather the industry adapted communications to the new reality after the Tobacco Masters Settlement Agreement. Thus, it is not possible to detect if the network really ceased to exist or not. The correct title of this chapter therefore perhaps should have been: the end of the traceable network.

Yet another possible reason the industry stopped working with the economists is that it seems people like Tollison and Wagner became very radical, and started writing op-eds with titles like Scientific integrity consumed by anti-smoking zealotry. DEspite this ectreme title, it was cleared by the Tobacco Institute. The same year they wrote a letter tot the editor, stating



In 1999, only a handful of the social consultants signed an open letter to the US Attorney General, defending the tobacco industry. It contained the standard free-market reasoning, wans was signed by 5 network members (Bruce L. Benson, Robert B. Ekelund, Lowell Gallaway, William F. Shughart, II and Walter E. Williams) and some 37 other economists, all of them known for their strong free-market views. By that time (1999), the role of the economists network had already been replaced by tobacco-friendly think tanks, and this letter probably originated somewhere in a think tank, not the Tobacco Institute's economists network.

The corrupted tobacco economist network, Part 45 - More tobacco publications.

Overview of previous posts here

Other tobacco publications

There have been more papers and booklets written by the members of the network, probably ordered by the tobacco industry. I didn't explore them because I don't think it will provide much new information and the list is long, very long, starting with:

• Tollison, R.D., Wagner, R.E. (1983) : WHO: No Rx for a Healthier World. Center for Study of Public Choice, George Mason University, 39 p.

The following two pieces were published in the same volume of the same journal, so there may have been some pal-review:

• Jackson, J. D., Ekelund, R. D. Jr. (1989) : The Influence of Advertising on Tobacco Consumption: A Debate: Some Problems with Chetwynd et al.'s Analysis, British Journal of Addiction 84 (November 1989), pp. 1247-1250
• Boddewyn, J. J. (1989) There is No Convincing Evidence for a Relationship Between Cigarette Advertising and Consumption. British Journal of Addiction. Volume 84, Issue 11 (November 1989), pages 1255–1261

Many more papers were published by members of the network, e.g.:

• Lee, D. R. (1990) : An Economic Analysis of the Economic Burden of Cigarette Smoking in Georgia Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia (March 1990): pp. 161-164.
• Lee, D. R. (1990) : Social Cost and The Cigarette Excise Tax: A Misguided Rationale for an Inefficient Policy, The Journal of Private Enterprise (Fall 1990): pp. 17-33.
• Rucker, R. R., Thurman, W. N., Sumner, D. A. (1990) : Production Rights with Limited Transferability: A Case Study of the U.S. Tobacco and Peanut Programs. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, December 1990
• Ault, R. W., Ekelund, R. B., Jackson, J.D., Saba, R. B., Saurman, D. S., (1991) : Smoking and Absenteeism: An Empirical Study, Applied Economics. 1991, 23, pp. 743-754 .
• Rucker, R. R., Thurman, W. N., Sumner, D. A., (1991) : An Economic Analysis of the Effects of Eliminating Restrictions on the Transfer of Tobacco Quota. in Current Issues in Tobacco Economics, Vol. 4, Tobacco Merchants Association of the United States, Inc., Princeton, NJ, 1991.
• Lee, D. R. (1991) : environmental economics and the social cost of smoking. Contemporary Economic Policy, Volume 9, Issue 1, pages 83–92, January 1991
• Bohanon, C.E, McClure, J.E. (1993) : The Prohibitive Taxation of Cigarettes. Indianapolis Star.
• Saba, R. at. al. (1995) : The Demand for Cigarette Smuggling, Economic Inquiry.vol. 33, no.-2 (April 1995), pp: 189-202;
• Coats, R. M. (1995) : A Note on Estimating Cross-Border Effects of State Cigarette Taxes National-Tax Journal, vol. 48, no. 4 (December 1995), pp. 573-84;
• Rucker, R. R., Thurman, W. N., Sumner, D. A. (1995) : Restricting the Market for Quota: An Analysis of Tobacco Production Rights with Corroboration from Congressional Testimony Journal of Political Economy, 1995, 103(1): 142-175.
• Boyes, W. J., Marlow, M. L. (1996) : The Public Demand for Smoking Bans, Public Choice, 88: 57-67. (Marlow was not a Savarese-network member, but was working for Philip Morris)
• Lee, D. R. (1996) : The Turf Fight for Indoor Air Quality Protection. Center for the Study of American Business, Volume 79, May 1996 http://news.heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/5854.pdf
• Vedder, R. K. (1997) : Bordering on Chaos; Fiscal Federalism and Excise Taxes in William F. Shughart II, ed., Taxing Choice: The Predatory Politics of Fiscal Discrimination (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publish- ete, 1997)
• Boyes, W. J., Marlow, M. L. (1997) : The Effects on Businesses of laws Restricting Smoking
• Lee, D. R. (1997) : Will Government's Crusade Against Tobacco Work ? Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University, Contemporary Issues Series 86 , Jun1997, pp. 2-4
• Lee, D. R. (1997) : The use and abuse of excise taxes. Tax Foundation, working paper 19, May 1997, 19 p.
• McCormick, R. E., Tollison, R. D., Wagner, R. E. (1997) : Smoking, insurance and social cost. Regulation : the Cato review of business and government.- Vol. 20.1997, 3, p. 33-37

And then there is the output of other scholars, like this book:
Magda E. Schaler, Jeffrey A. Schaler (eds.) : Smoking, who has the right ? (Prometheus, 1998)

The connection of these authors to the economists network, if any, is not clear, but like the main members of the network, Jeffrey Schaler was working at. . . George Mason University.

The Schaler and Schaler-book contains contributions from George J. Annas, Gary S. Becker, Peter L. Berger, Richard Daynard, Antony Flew, Peter D. Jacobson, Stanton Glantz, Robert E. Goodin, Joseph R. Gusfield, Stephen J. Heishman, Graham E. Kelder, David A. Kessler, Mark Edward Lender, Stephen C. Littlechild, Rajendra Persaud, Robert N. Procter, David Ryder, Robert J. Samuelson, John Slade, Edward L. Sweda Jr, Robert D. Tollison, Richard E. Wagner, Lee S. Weinberg, Walter E. Williams, and Richard Vatz.

Although some were not members of the social cost consultant network, those underlined were people who had worked as consultants for the tobacco industry, via direct evidence in the Tobacco Legacy Documents Library. It raises questions why and how the book was compiled.

Clearly, in the 1980's and 1990's, economists suddenly were very interested in tobacco ...

The corrupted tobacco economist network, Part 44: another example where the 'independent academics' allow the Tobacco Institute to alter the draft versions of their work.

Overview of previous posts here

Office of technology assessment on the costs of smoking: wrong again

In 1993 professors Robert Tollison and Richard Wagner wrote the paper The Office of Technology Assessment on the Costs of Smoking: Wrong Again. It was published by George Mason University's Center for Study of Public Choice. Once again, this was not an independent scientific publication. Tobacco Institute's Calvin George wrote





Everything Tollison and Wagner wrote had to be cleared by the Tobacco Institute's lawyers:

The LTDL shows indeed corrections were made by the industry.

 And yes, these changes do appear in Tollison's final draft

The corrupted tobacco economists network - Part 41 : Benefit-cost analysis of EPA's workplace smoking policies

Overview of previous posts here

Benefit-cost analysis of EPA's workplace smoking policies

In 1991 the booklet “A benefit-cost analysis of the environmental protection agency's draft guide to workplace smoking policies” was written 

It was well paid work, even though Savarese did not mention all the names of the authors, which is strange as the document 1) does mention other names 2) this is written AFTER the 1987-audit in which the industry complained Savarese hiding some names from them.

Of course, again the authors did not work independently

It is amusing to read that the Tobacco Institute hired Miller and Tollison because they could not find anyone else

Either the output was subpar or did not meet the tobacco industry’s needs, as the work was not used.