Principles for Cigarette Taxation in Africa

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Kip Kip Viscusi
Keyword(s):  
Cigarette Taxation

The Economics of Smoking Prevention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip DeCicca ◽  
Donald S. Kenkel ◽  
Michael F. Lovenheim ◽  
Erik Nesson
Keyword(s):  
Cigarette Smoking ◽  
Secondhand Smoke ◽  
Smoking Prevalence ◽  
Smoking Behavior ◽  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Smoking Prevention ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cigarette Taxation ◽  
Developed Nations

Smoking prevention has been a key component of health policy in developed nations for over half a century. Public policies to reduce the physical harm attributed to cigarette smoking, both externally and to the smoker, include cigarette taxation, smoking bans, and anti-smoking campaigns, among other publicly conceived strategies to reduce smoking initiation among the young and increase smoking cessation among current smokers. Despite the policy intensity of the past two decades, there remains debate regarding whether, and to what extent, the observed reductions in smoking are due to such policies. Indeed, while smoking rates in developed countries have fallen substantially over the past half century, it is difficult to separate secular trends toward greater investment in health from actual policy impacts. In other words, smoking rates might have declined in the absence of these anti-smoking policies, consistent with trends toward other healthy behaviors. These trends also may reflect longer-run responses to policies enacted many years ago, which also poses challenges for identification of causal policy effects. While smoking rates fell dramatically over this period, the gradient in smoking prevalence has become tilted toward lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals. That is, cigarette smoking exhibited a relatively flat SES gradient 50 years ago, but today that gradient is much steeper: relatively less-educated and lower-income individuals are many times more likely to be cigarette smokers than their more highly educated and higher-income counterparts. Over time, consumers also have become less price-responsive, which has rendered cigarette taxation a less effective policy tool with which to reduce smoking. The emergence of tax avoidance strategies such as casual cigarette smuggling (e.g., cross-tax border purchasing) and purchasing from tax-free outlets (e.g., Native reservations in Canada and the United States) have likely contributed to reduced price sensitivity. Such behaviors have been of particular interest in the last decade as cigarette taxation has roughly doubled cigarette prices in many developed nations, creating often large incentives to avoid taxation for those who continue to smoke. Perhaps due to the perception that traditional policy has been ineffective, recent anti-smoking policy has focused more on the direct regulation of cigarettes and smoking behavior. The main non-price-based policy has been the rise of smoke-free air laws, which restrict smoking behavior in workplaces, restaurants, and bars. These regulations can reduce smoking prevalence and exposure to secondhand smoke among nonsmokers. However, they may also shift the location of smoking in ways that increase secondhand smoke exposure, particularly among children. Other non-tax regulations focus on the packaging (e.g., the movement towards plain packaging), advertising, and product attributes of cigarettes (e.g., nicotine content, cigarette flavor, etc.), and most are attempts to reduce smoking by making it less desirable to the actual or potential smoker. Perhaps not surprisingly, research in the economics of smoking prevention has followed these policy developments, though strong interest remains in both the evaluation of price- and non-price policies as well as any offsetting responses among smokers that may undermine the effectiveness of these regulations. While the past two decades have provided fertile ground for research in the economics of smoking, we expect this to continue, as governments search for more innovative and effective ways to reduce smoking.

What Determines Excise Tax Rates?

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Bielinska-Kwapisz
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Excise Tax ◽  
Gasoline Tax ◽  
Horizontal Competition ◽  
Cigarette Taxation

Abstract We estimate the determinants of state excise tax rates on beer, cigarettes, and gasoline using a panel data set from US 48 contiguous states from 1982 to 2003. State excise tax rates currently vary a great deal and we assess empirically economic and political factors that affect the level of these tax rates. We incorporate both horizontal competition and vertical competition. Our results show that the most important factor determining the level of cigarette and gasoline tax rates is the horizontal competition between neighboring states and that vertical competition exists in case of beer and cigarette taxation.

scholarly journals Do Cigarette Taxes Make Smokers Happier

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan H Gruber ◽  
Sendhil Mullainathan
Keyword(s):  
State Level ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Differential Impact ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Cigarette Taxes ◽  
Excise Taxes ◽  
Independent Information ◽  
Cigarette Taxation ◽  
Tax Changes

AbstractSome policy makers justify cigarette taxes by arguing that they actually make smokers better off. This argument has been hard to evaluate because behavioral data, such as that showing reduced cigarette consumption following a tax hike, cannot resolve the issue of whether smokers are made better off by the reduction or not. In this paper, we directly assess the effect of cigarette taxes on well-being, using subjective well-being data. We model the differential impact of excise taxes on those with a propensity to smoke, relative to others, in order to control for omitted correlations between happiness and excise taxation. Using US data on happiness and state-level changes in excise taxes, we find consistent evidence that excise taxes make those who have a propensity to smoke happier. To assess robustness, we repeat the exercise using Canadian data, which has independent information on well-being and also much larger tax changes, and find the exact same pattern. Moreover, these impacts are present for cigarette excise taxes, but not for other excise taxes. These results suggest that the welfare effects of cigarette taxation are far more complex than simple rational economic models might predict.

Some Limits on Taxing Sin: Cigarette Taxation and Health Care Finance

1997 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 761 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Jackson ◽  
Richard P. Saba
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Finance ◽  
Cigarette Taxation

scholarly journals Assessment of impact of tax rates changes on cigarette prices in the Czech Republic

2010 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 93-102
Author(s):  
Petr David ◽  
Luboš Střelec ◽  
Pavel Kolman
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Cigarette Taxes ◽  
Explanatory Variables ◽  
Excise Duty ◽  
European Union Countries ◽  
Legislative Changes ◽  
Cigarette Taxation

The consumption taxes called excise duties are imposed on tobacco products in the Czech Republic and also in the other European Union countries. Cigarette taxation is atypical compared to taxation of other products encumbered with excise duty. Number of cigarettes and also consumer’s price together make the tax base. Harmonization effort of cigarette taxes in the European Union countries and also pure fiscal need of Czech Republic, are causes of frequent changes of cigarette taxes rates in recent years. These changes does not conduce only to changes of tax collection, but also bring many other effects, that have to be identified and analysed to set global results of steps to be made in the scope of tax policy in the Czech Republic. Average price of all 435 cigarettes marks on the market in the period from July 2001 to July 2009 is the base characteristic necessary to examine impacts of cigarette taxes changes. Classical regression analysis is used to analyse legislative changes impact on average cigarettes price. Single legislative changes are realized through the use of synthetic (dummy) variables performing as explanatory variables. There is also tested significance of particular parameters of the model and analysed structural breakages in this text. It is necessary not only to impeach lawful impact of these steps during imposing or changing of taxation, but also effective impact, which is often very different from lawful impact. From implementation of obligatory of marking the cigarettes in 2001 we are able to identify some relevant characteristics and impacts of changes of tax burden imposed on cigarettes in the Czech Republic. Statistically significant changes of average non-weighted price of cigarettes are identified in here, as well as structural breakages of average non-weighted price of cigarettes and values of tax incidence. Also temporal and other connection with given facts is discussed.

scholarly journals The Distributional Impacts of Cigarette Taxation in Bangladesh

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giselle Del Carmen ◽  
Alan Fuchs ◽  
Maria Eugenia Genoni
Keyword(s):  
Cigarette Taxation ◽  
Distributional Impacts

Interdependence and Political Ideology: The Conditional Diffusion of Cigarette Taxation in U.S. States

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian W. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Health Policy ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Policy Diffusion ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Cigarette Taxes ◽  
Government Ideology ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
The Government ◽  
Cigarette Taxation

This paper presents inquiries into the interdependence of cigarette taxation in U.S. states between 1971 and 2006. It is argued that diffusion influences emanating from the tax policies of other states have an effect that is conditional upon the government ideology in a focal state. Specifically, it is shown that only those state governments that are not positioned on the far right end of an ideology continuum use an environment of high cigarette taxes to pursue their fiscal and health policy goals. At the same time, interventionist ideology can only be effective if it operates within a favorable policy environment. I argue that casting policy diffusion as conditional allows for empirically more accurate and theoretically richer models.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document