How do consumers respond to “sin taxes”? New evidence from a tax on sugary drinks
Publication date
2021-04ISSN
0277-9536
Abstract
It is unclear what the effects of taxes on sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) are on consumer behaviour and which consumers may be affected the most. We evaluate the effect of the SSB tax introduced in Catalonia (but not in the rest of Spain) in May 2017 using loyalty card data of monthly purchases by 884,843 households from May 2016 to April 2018. Using a Difference-in-Differences approach, we study the SSB tax effect on the purchased quantity of beverages and sugar. Our results suggest a reduction in purchases of taxed beverages and a small increase in purchases of untaxed beverages. Households have substituted taxed beverages with their lower sugar (untaxed) counterparts. This has led to a 2.2% overall reduction in sugar purchases from beverages. Our study implies that although sin taxes moderately change consumer behaviour, a combination of different policies would be required to tackle obesity.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Published version
Language
English
Subject (CDU)
33 - Economics. Economic science
61 - Medical sciences
Keywords
Pages
11
Publisher
Elsevier
Collection
274;
Is part of
Social Science & Medicine
Citation
Fichera, Eleonora; Mora, Toni; Lopez-Valcarcel, Beatriz G. [et al.]. How do consumers respond to “sin taxes”? New evidence from a tax on sugary drinks. Social Science & Medicine, 2021, 274, 113799. Disponible en: <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953621001313>. Fecha de acceso: 24 mar. 2021. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113799
Grant agreement number
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/ECO2017-83771-C3-2-R
Note
We thank participants of the European Society for Population Economics (2019); the International Health Economics Association precongress organized session on the Economics of Obesity (2019); the Health Economists’ Study Group at the University of York (2018); the American Society of Health Economists conference in Atlanta (2018); seminar participants at the Department of Economics, University of Leicester and University of Bath, Public Health England (London), the Health Economics Group at the University of Newcastle and the Health Economics Research Centre at the University of Oxford. Authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support received from the Chair in Public Finance: Healthcare and Education Policy Assessment (cooperation with EUREST Catalunya). Financial support was also received from the ECO2017-83771-C3-3-R (MINECO/AEI/FEDER, UE) and 2017SGR263 and marketing department of the supermarket chain.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
Rights
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
