About

Alan Mathios is a Professor in the Department of Economics and the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University. He served as Dean of Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology from 2007 to 2018 and recently served seven years (2014-2020) as a Commissioner for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Prior to his deanship, he was the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Undergraduate Education for the College of Human Ecology and was a member of the Department of Policy Analysis and Management (PAM), which recently became part of the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. He also served as Associate Chair and Director of Undergraduate Studies for PAM. His academic background includes a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, obtained in 1985. His research focuses on the effect of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory policies on consumer and firm behavior. He has studied the impact of regulation of health claims in food advertising and direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical products on health outcomes. Additionally, his research examines government tax policies and their influence on smoking onset and cessation. His most recent work involves evaluating the effectiveness of proposed FDA graphic warning labels on cigarette packages. His research has been funded by various sources, including multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health, and support from foundations such as the Foundation for a Smoke Free World, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Merck Foundation. Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards for teaching, advising, and service, including the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Cornell University Kendal S. Carpenter Advising Award.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Environmental health
• Economics
• Psychology
• Advertising
• Business
• Computer Security
• Law
• Sociology
• Statistics
• Demography
• Public economics
• Food science
• Microeconomics
• Library science

Selected publications

• Consumer Tobacco Product Choices in China: The Impact of a Ban on Flavored E-cigarettes

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2026-04-01

  reportOpen access

  A growing body of economic research explores the impacts of U.S. e-cigarette regulations on consumer tobacco choices, but less is known about e-cigarette regulation in China, the world's largest tobacco market.We study China's ban of flavored e-cigarettes.The ban of all flavors in ecigarettes other than tobacco was part of a comprehensive package of regulatory policies adopted in 2022.We collected stated preference data through two discrete choice experiments conducted in 2021 and 2023, with about 600 subjects each.All subjects were adult current smokers.In the experiments, subjects made hypothetical choices between cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and quitting.Product prices and the attributes of e-cigarettes were experimentally varied, allowing us to identify the impact of flavor availability on stated preferences.We use the data to estimate conditional logit models and to predict the impact of the flavor ban and other policies.The empirical results suggest that a ban of flavored e-cigarettes decreases stated preferences for e-cigarettes but also has the unintended consequence to increase stated preferences for cigarettes.Despite the predicted decrease in e-cigarette choices, the predicted choice share of flavored e-cigarettes when they are illegal but loosely enforced is 53% of the predicted share when legal.This large illegal share is consistent with anecdotal evidence and with the evidence from our 2023 background survey that flavored e-cigarettes remain popular after the ban although fewer vapers reported getting their ecigarettes from specialty or general retailers.

  PublisherDOI

• Consumer Tobacco Product Choices in China: The Impact of a Ban on Flavored E-cigarettes

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• The Impact of Tobacco Regulations on Smoking and Vaping

  Southern Economic Journal · 2026-01-18

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT The 2009 Tobacco Control Act granted the Food and Drug Administration broad authority to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products, which was further expanded in 2016 to include e‐cigarettes. To study the impact of FDA tobacco regulations, we designed and conducted a discrete choice experiment to collect data on adult subjects' stated preferences for cigarettes, e‐cigarettes, and quitting. We find evidence that enacted, pending, and potential FDA regulations may have important influences on adult smokers' choices. We estimate that when the long‐delayed requirement of cigarette graphic warning labels is implemented, it could decrease the probability that adult smokers choose cigarettes by 5.30 percentage points. However, our results suggest that recent policy trends towards tighter regulation of e‐cigarettes might work in the opposite direction. We estimate that the FDA‐required warning label on e‐cigarettes increases the probability of cigarette choices by 1.9 percentage points. Based on the estimated effect of a flavor ban, our results suggest that full enforcement of FDA marketing denial orders for almost all flavored e‐cigarettes could increase the probability of cigarette choices by 2.8 percentage points. Finally, raising e‐cigarette prices mainly moves respondents away from e‐cigarettes towards combustible cigarettes rather than to attempting to quit tobacco products altogether.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Editorial – “New Editorial Board for 2026–2030”

  Journal of Consumer Policy · 2026-01-19

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Consumer preferences for cigarettes and heated tobacco products in Japan: evidence from a discrete choice experiment

  Applied Economics · 2025-10-07

  article
  PublisherDOI

• A Discrete Choice Analysis of Consumer Decisions: Nicotine Products in an Illicit Market

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-09-01

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  This study investigates consumer stated preferences for manufactured cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco, and vapes in Trkiye, with a focus on how product attributes shape choices of adult consumers.A discrete choice experiment embedded in an online survey examines the role of prices of these products, flavor availability, and most importantly the legal status of vapes.Results indicate strong price sensitivity, both to own prices and to the prices of substitutes.In addition, legal status emerges as a critical factor that shapes stated preferences: consumers exhibit a marked aversion to products that are banned or sold illegally.However, scenario analyses suggest that vapes would capture a substantial market share even under strict prohibition.The hypothetical scenario of a complete ban would likely have a modest effect on the cessation of nicotine products while shifting choices toward traditional combustible tobacco products.These findings highlight the limits of prohibition and underscore the importance of regulatory design.In particular, the treatment of legal status, together with pricing and taxation policies, plays a decisive role in shaping consumer behavior and public health outcomes.

  PublisherDOI

• Two Farewells and Two Welcomes

  Journal of Consumer Policy · 2025-09-03

  articleOpen access

  As the journal approaches its 50th year, the current editors wanted to reflect on the service of two of the editors of the journal who have had such a huge impact on the quality of the journal, its content, and the direction that it has taken over the last couple of decades.After serving for many years and giving endless hours of their time to advancing the mission of the Journal of Consumer Policy (JCP), Hans Micklitz and Lucia Reisch have recently stepped down as editors.Not only have they contributed to the intellectual life of the journal but they also have become beloved colleagues and made our service to the journal exceptionally rewarding.We simply cannot thank them enough.Hans-Wolfgang Micklitz has helped lead the way in making JCP a major scholarly outlet for work focused on European consumer law.His seminal work on the tension between European Union law and national/local legal systems has inspired a new generation of scholars who are now contributing articles to JCP.His goal of expanding his ideas beyond Europe to other continents has led to special issues focused on consumer protection in non-European countries as well.His influence on the direction of the journal will last long after his editorship, and we are grateful that he continues his service on the editorial board of the journal.Lucia Reisch, who for decades was the managing editor, has been instrumental in advancing the scholarship on sustainability, and her influence can be seen by the many, many papers that the JCP has published in this area.Her longstanding involvement with the journal spans an era that saw sustainability research go from what some considered fringe to now its mainstream place in the discipline.Not only was she part of this transformation but she also helped lead the way.It is very satisfying to see that her influence is recognised as she holds an endowed chair position at one of the very top academic institutions in the world.The journal also benefited greatly by her engaged scholarship, where she used her expertise to advise the European Union and the German government on consumer

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Understanding the Demand‐Side of an Illegal Market: A Case Study of the Prohibition of Menthol Cigarettes

  Health Economics · 2025-02-19

  article

  Economic research has long focused on illegal markets and the consequences of prohibitions. We provide a case study of the proposed prohibition of menthol cigarettes, which are smoked by almost 19 million people in the U.S. Illegal markets for menthol cigarettes could not only blunt the prohibition's intended consequence to reduce smoking but could also lead to unintended consequences. We use data from a discrete choice experiment. Our mixed logit model predicts a substantial potential consumer demand for illegal menthol cigarettes, especially if menthol e-cigarettes are also illegal.

  PublisherDOI

• The Impact of Tobacco Regulations on Smoking and Vaping

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• The Impact of Tobacco Regulations on Smoking and Vaping

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01CA113407

  NIH · $920k · 2010

• NIH Grant R01CA11340701A1

  NIH · $463k · 2010

Frequent coauthors

• Donald Kenkel

  Cornell University

  102 shared

• Rosemary J. Avery

  94 shared

• Dean R. Lillard

  The Ohio State University

  41 shared

• John Cawley

  31 shared

• Sahara Byrne

  Cornell University

  25 shared

• Jeff Niederdeppe

  Cornell University

  23 shared

• Amelia Greiner Safi

  22 shared

• Philip DeCicca

  United States Department of State

  18 shared

Awards & honors

• Outstanding Scholarship Award (Federal Trade Commission)
• Excellence in Economics Award (Federal Trade Commission)
• Award for Superior Service to the FTC (Federal Trade Commiss…
• SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching
• Kendal S. Carpenter Advising Award (Cornell University)