Estimating the 'consumer surplus' for branded versus standardised tobacco packaging.

Background: Tobacco companies question whether standardised (or 'plain') packaging will change smokers' behaviour. We addressed this question by estimating how standardised packaging compared to a proven tobacco control intervention, price increases through excise taxes, thus providing a quantitative measure of standardised packaging's likely effect.

Methods: We conducted an online study of 311 New Zealand smokers aged 18 years and above that comprised a willingness-to-pay task comparing a branded and a standardised pack at four different price levels, and a choice experiment.