Smoke-Free Laws and Employee Turnover

Authors

Eric C. Thompson, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Ellen J. Hahn, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KYFollow
Glenn Blomquist, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KYFollow
John Garen, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KYFollow
Don Mullineaux, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Nola Ogunro, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Mary K. Rayens, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KYFollow

Date of this Version

July 2008

Comments

Published in Contemporary Economic Policy 26:3 (July 2008), pp. 351–359; doi 10.1111/j.1465-7287.2007.00091.x Copyright © 2008 Western Economic Association International; published by Blackwell Publishing/John Wiley & Sons., Inc. http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/1074-3529 Used by permission.

Abstract

This study examines how smoke-free laws influence turnover among restaurant workers. The study uses a unique data set of payroll records of a franchisee of a national full-service restaurant chain operating 23 restaurants in the state of Arizona, a state where several communities have adopted smoke-free laws. Municipal smoke-free laws did not, on average, have a statistically significant effect on the probability of employee separation in the years after implementation. These results suggest that training costs associated with employee turnover would not rise for full-service restaurants in municipalities that adopt smoke-free laws.