An experimental study of nicotine product consumption in Poland

Discrete choice experiment - nicotine users will choose between different nicotine products with randomized prices and flavors, and an opt-out option of no consumption.

2025-06-02

2025-06-27

1. Price elasticities of demand for three nicotine products (cigarettes, heated tobacco, and e-cigarettes), including cross-price elasticities between these products;
2. Willingness to pay for non-tobacco flavors of products.
3. Relationship between health awareness of respondents and their consumption choices.

We will use a Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI) technique. We will restrict the sample to individuals who, in the last 30 days, used one of the following products: cigarettes, heated tobacco, or e-cigarette with nicotine. In the first part of the survey, we will collect basic information about the participants’ socio-demographic characteristics and their use of nicotine products. We will also ask respondents about their opinion on the health effects of nicotine and specific products. To assess the objective knowledge of respondents, we will also ask them how much nicotine is in alternative nicotine products as compared with cigarettes.

In the second part of the survey, we will introduce a discrete choice framework, where each participant will see five vignettes with three different nicotine products to choose from and the opt-out option (not buying anything). The product attributes that will be randomized are price and taste. Randomization will be conducted independently for each product and each attribute. The price of each product will be higher than the current market price by a random factor in the range of {+0%, +10%, +20%, ...,+90%, +100%}. For heated tobacco and e-cigarette there will be three possible flavors: tobacco, menthol, fruity.

We will estimate the price elasticities and WTPs, taking into account possible heterogeneities across the following five dimensions:
1. Health awareness
2. Age group
3. Gender
4. Highest educational attainment
5. Income group

Randomization will be conducted independently for each observation (i.e., a single vignette) and implemented by a professional survey company responsible for data collection.

Each participant will be presented with five vignettes, each containing three products. Price and taste of each product will be independently randomized.

No

n/a

4500 respondents aged 18-65 that will provide 22,500 consumption choices.

We do not plan different treatment arms.

The minimum detectable effect sizes for respondents’ selection of individual products are as follows: Traditional cigarettes: 0.0181 Heated tobacco: 0.0130 E-cigarettes: 0.0139