Neue Studie vom Karlsruher Institut für Technologie – SWR Nachrichten

Smoking is harmful to health is well known, and can lead to an earlier death. Whether this fact the company’s financial benefit or harm brings, researchers have found the KIT.

The study by Professor Berthold Wigger and his collaborator Florian Steidl from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) revealed that smoking social funds and taxpayers in Germany relieve the bottom line to high billions.

The main reason is that smoking about five years die earlier than Non smoking and reflect accordingly no age pensions and annuities more. This affects financially stronger than additional costs of additional medical treatment or early withdrawal from the labor market.

“We have restarted the net costs of smoking in Germany examined “Wigger told Deutsche Presse-Agentur. It was all about the costs that will be borne by the general public.

The two researchers chose a novel approach for its investigation. They left in a theoretical model calculations non-smokers and the real society of 2011 to take over a life cycle of 89 years against each other and calculated, what came out at extra costs and savings for the society here. Accordingly, the real society in which 30 percent of men and 21 percent of women smoke, 36.4 billion euros more affordable for all.

In addition, smoking rates in their lifetime even 376 billion euros tobacco taxes. “Tobacco taxes can be justified only with difficulty, if one considers the external net cost” Wigger said. This will not detract from the high popularity of tobacco taxes at the tax authorities but.

Other researchers have come to a different conclusion and put the annual cost of smoking in Germany between 30 and 35 billion euros, some even up to 90 billion euros. . The only stood against revenue of € 14 billion from the tobacco tax

This discrepancy explains Wigger as follows: “These are gross calculations, we calculated net effects.” For example, if a smoker with 70 years succumb to lung cancer, he could no longer die with 80 years to cancer. Because at the end lies the mortality rate at 100 per cent and the Non smoking would die, the net costs were limited.