Tax design in the alcohol market

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Griffith, Rachel; O'Connell, Martin; Smith, Kate
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; University of Manchester; University of London; University College London
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.12.005
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 20-35
• 关键词: Externality; Corrective taxes; alcohol

摘要

Alcohol consumption generates negative externalities that are non-linear in the total amount of alcohol consumed. If tastes for products are heterogeneous and correlated with marginal externalities, then varying tax rates on different products can lead to welfare gains. We study this problem in an optimal tax framework and empirically for the UK market. We find that heavy drinkers have systematically different patterns of alcohol demands and welfare gains from optimally varying rates are higher the more concentrated externalities are among heavy drinkers. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).