In my experience, it is easy to break one of the many assumptions inherent in methods like Diff-in-diff. Because of this I have little trust in these techniques in general.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_in_differences

Anything in the real world has many many factors affecting its consumption. What would it matter if it was trending down specifically? Or are you asking what models and statistical tools they use to make analyses like this when there are a complex set of factors at play?

Depends where you live. Visiting the US I don't remember ever seeing anyone smoking, but in Europe it's huge, especially in centra/southern/eastern Europe, including the Balkans where coffee and cigarettes are the staple of any nutritious breakfast.

I see plenty of teenagers smoking, plus on outdoor terraces and outside of offices, clubs, bars, even the balconies in my building, it's full of smokers.

Europe is a few decades behind the US on giving up smoking.

I think a lot of people, non smokers mostly, don't see all the bonding, networking, flirting, and general socializing that happens when smokers get together for a fag, which probably explains why this unhealthy habit is still very popular today in many countries. I know many people who met their SOs at smoking breaks or found out about new yet unpublished job opportunities from the chit-chat that happens at smoking breaks.

There's something about the smoking break gatherings, from a social aspect, that can't be replicated at other kind of gathering such as water-cooler.

You don't need to be wealthy to smoke a lot, just bad with finances.

That’s probably because the places where people do smoke are less likely to be visited by tourists.

It's going down because of many measures that have been implemented:

- restriction of billboard advertising

- restriction of tobacco ads in film and tv

- warnings on packaging

- photos on packaging

- banning smoking in public buildings

- banning smoking in restaurants

- banning smoking in public transportation

- banning smoking near entrances

- age restrictions on buying cigarettes

- banning of automatic vending machines

etc.

Each of those have a small effect, but in total the effect is large. It's hard to measure the effectiveness of individual measures, but in aggregate it's clear that these measures significantly reduce smoking. Especially if you compare countries where these measures have not been implemented yet with countries where they were implemented sooner.

People don't give up smoking overnight, the 20 year lead the US has over these measures is not something we can expect to catch up... Smoking is going down, slowly, and I think it's because of all these measures.

I smoked for about 10 years between the mid 80s and 90s. When I started, most of the 'cool', 'sophisticated' etc people seemed to smoke. When I stopped, it was mostly a health choice, but partly because it seemed no longer 'cool', everyone I knew had given up or was trying to.

I can't even fathom why anyone would start smoking now, it seems like an affliction of the poor and/or the old rather than anything sophisticated.

All of this is mostly a change in fashion, people having a deeper awareness of the health risks, becoming aware of tobacco industry manipulation, etc. No doubt government messaging aided and supported that change, but it is not the only or even the main cause imho.

Where do you think this change is coming from? When I was a kid, there was a huge billboard right next to my school with a man wearing aviator glasses, an airplane in the background, smoking Memphis cigarettes. That was the coolest guy I've ever seen.

Compare that to 20 years later, there's a photo of a depressed guy on the package and a message "smoking causes infertility".

When I first started at uni, students still smoked in the auditorium. That was cool.

By the time I finished, people who smoked had to go outside and stand in smoking zones like animals. The opposite of cool.

There's a reason why the public perception changed. I don't think the public perception would have changed as drastically without government intervention.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/237908/smoking-rate-hits-new-lo...

Hell, when I was in high school, you could still smoke at 16.

I'd argue the health risks have become way more know, which drove most of the reduction.