Can a smoking ban save your heart?

This paper evaluates the negative causal effect of environmental tobacco exposure on health by exploiting the time and geographical variation in public-place smoking bans implemented in Switzerland between 2007 and 2011. We contribute to the literature by focusing on hospitaliza- tions for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), which allow us to measure the short-run effects of smoking bans on an objective metric of health. Using monthly data from the universe of Swiss hospitals between 2004 and 2012, we show that the incidence of AMI decreases by approxi- mately 8% immediately after implementation of the law with large heterogeneity across sex, age and education groups. Specifically, the estimated effect was larger among men under 65 and in regions characterized by a lower level of education. We support our findings using survey data from the Swiss Health Survey showing that the policy did not affect smoking prevalence and consumption but led to a dramatic reduction in passive smoking among population subgroups for which we find the largest reductions in hospitalization. Our results clearly indicate that the policy was effective in reducing the negative externality of smoking and, at the same time, leaded to a reduction in the level of health inequality.