Obesity

Presentation given at the Public Economics Lecture, November 2012 in Oxford and Cambridge

The Home Office today released a consultation on policies aimed at reducing the social costs associated with alcohol consumption. The headline-grabbing proposal is a 45p minimum unit price for alcohol in England and Wales. We find the policy would have a significant impact, affecting almost six in ten off-licence alcohol units. However, it would be preferable to establish a price floor for alcohol through a restructured alcohol tax system in which tax is related to alcohol content more directly and retailers are banned from selling alcohol at less than the tax due.

Paper given to the Food and Drink Federation Steering Group, November 2012

Presentation to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Summer Institute, Boston

This presentations was given at the National Heart Forum meeting on 'What is the role of food taxes?' on 29 June 2012 in London.

Presentation given in Manchester on 24th May 2012

These slides were presented at an IFS workshop, 'Resource Allocation within Households' on 30 March 2012.

This presentation was made at a workshop held at the Institute for Fiscal Studies about resource allocation within households in March 2012.

This presentation was given at a seminar at the University of Lancaster on a cross country comparison of demand for nutrients.

These slides were presented to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

Yesterday, the Government published a 'call to action' which lays out its strategy for tackling obesity in England. One approach to tackling diet related health problems, which governments are increasingly turning to, is the use of fiscal measures. We look at some of the issues involved in designing a 'fat tax' and under what circumstances such a policy may be effective.

This presentation was given at the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics annual conference in Stockholm on 3rd September 2011.

This presentation was given to the Associate Parliamentary Food and Health Forum in the Commons in April 2011.