 |
cigarettes & tobacco news | 
 |
|
Tobacco in Indiana
Hoosiers won't quit … smoking cigarettes. Here's why. Indiana has kept the welcome mat out for tobacco, and it is costing the state over $2 billion annually -- an average of $560 per year to every taxpaying household, said Eric Wright, director of health policy in the Center for Urban Policy and the Environment at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Indiana ranks No. 2 among the 50 states for percentage of adults who smoke and may be poised to take the lead. Below, Wright explains some of the state-level factors that contribute to high smoking rates in the state. . . .
in the legislature means that measures that promote cessation, such as smoke-free workplace ordinances and taxes, are often rejected. . . .
How tobacco covers its assets. Diversification, long derided as a poor strategy for most companies seeking to maximize shareholder return, has made good business sense for sin companies needing to shelter their assets from potential litigation or regulation, according to a study of tobacco company activity led by Professor Messod Daniel Beneish of Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. For those companies, parking capital elsewhere in physical assets of less controversial operations can keep it away from litigators and help shore up "political capital" as well, says Beneish, the Sam Frumer Professor of Accounting. In the case of tobacco companies in particular, "diversification reduced the depth of their pockets, made them less attractive targets to politicians and private litigants, and extended tobacco firms' influence to a larger number of regulators," said Beneish, who examined 88 diversifying acquisitions by tobacco companies between 1963 and 1988.
|
|
|
|
 |
