Andreas Stoller – PhD Student in Economics

I am a fourth-year PhD student in Economics at the University of Fribourg, under the supervision of Professor Martin Huber. In my PhD thesis, I assess the effectiveness of prevention policies such as tobacco taxes, tobacco billboard bans, and regulations on e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. I am an applied microeconomist using state-of-the-art econometric methods for policy evaluation, with an emphasis on causal inference and causal machine learning. I have previously worked on social security and labor market interventions at the Swiss Federal Statistical Office and the University of Basel. 

"Effect of Cigarette Price and Tax Increases on Smoking in Europe: A Difference-in-Differences Study with Double Machine Learning", with M. Huber

Abstract: We estimate the effect of cigarette price and tax increases on smoking rates using Eurobarometer survey data covering 27 countries from 2012 to 2020. Employing a difference-in-differences estimator with double machine learning, we relax restrictive functional form assumptions typically imposed by parametric approaches such as two-way fixed effects. Our results indicate that tax increases reduce the smoking rates, particularly among individuals aged 15–24. We find that among individuals exposed to a tax increase, the smoking rate decreases by 3.44 percentage points (p-value = 0.04) in the post-treatment period for those who smoke cigarettes at least once per month. For daily cigarette smokers, the reduction is 3.15 percentage points (p-value = 0.09). In contrast, we find no significant effects for price increases. To assess the role of functional form assumptions, we compare our estimates based on flexible methods with those from conventional parametric methods and find qualitatively similar results across both approaches.

"Impact of Regulations on E-Cigarettes and Heated Tobacco Products Among Youth in Switzerland", with M. Huber

"Municipal Policies and Solar Adoption in Switzerland: Evidence Around a Federal Incentive Reform", with X. Raso-Domínguez and M. Huber

“Pilotstudie zur Wirkung der Tabakprävention auf die Gesundheit in der Schweiz: Ein kontrafaktischer Ansatz“ (Eng. Evaluation of Tobacco Prevention in Switzerland), with Martin Huber, Swiss Tobacco Prevention Fund, 2024 [PDF]

As a research associate and deputy principal investigator, I collaborated with Prof. Martin Huber on a research project about the effectiveness of tobacco prevention policies, funded by the Swiss Tobacco Prevention Fund. The study assesses a range of measures, from tobacco taxation and advertising restrictions to regulations on e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. The resulting report provides recommendations for Swiss tobacco prevention policy and outlines requirements for future studies on tobacco prevention and related topics.

"Difference-in-Differences with R", Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life Course Research (LIVES), Lausanne, 2026 [Presentation] [R Code]