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WP2008-How-well-targeted-are-soda-taxes.pdf
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Soda taxes aim to reduce excessive sugar consumption. Policymakers highlight the young, particularly from poor backgrounds, and high sugar consumers as groups whose behavior they would most like to influence. There are also concerns about the policy being regressive. We assess who are most impacted by soda taxes. We estimate demand using micro longitudinal data covering on-the-go purchases, and exploit the panel dimension to estimate individual specific preferences. We relate these preferences and counterfactual predictions to individual characteristics and show that soda taxes are relatively effective at targeting the sugar intake of the young, are less successful at targeting the intake of those with high total dietary sugar, and are unlikely to be strongly regressive especially if consumers benefit from averted internalities.
Authors
CPP Co-Director, IFS Research Director
Rachel is Research Director and Professor at the University of Manchester. She was made a Dame for services to economic policy and education in 2021.
Research Fellow Toulouse School of Economics
Pierre is a Research Fellow at the IFS, a Professor of Economics at the Toulouse School of Economics and a co-editor of the JEEA.
Research Fellow University of Wisconsin
Martin, previously Deputy Research Director, is a Research Fellow at IFS and Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin.
Working Paper details
- DOI
- 10.1920/wp.ifs.2020.820
- Publisher
- The IFS
Suggested citation
P, Dubois and R, Griffith and M, O'Connell. (2020). How well targeted are soda taxes?. London: The IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/how-well-targeted-are-soda-taxes (accessed: 25 April 2024).
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