Understanding the Effect of a Soft Drinks Industry Levy on Consumer Well-Being in the UK: First Estimates

Abstract This paper is a first attempt to provide quantitative evaluation of consumer well-being resulting from the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy introduced in April 2018. Using model setup that encompasses both normal case and Giffen for sugary drinks consumption, computational exercise performed quantify welfare social loss variety household incomes. The demonstrates introduction soft levy results non-trivial loss, particularly terms monetary value weight effect. We also find wealthiest individuals society are affected positively by this levy, whilst poorest segment population adversely affected, especially presence binding nutritional constraint.