Context and aims Internationally, the repertoire of alcohol pricing policies has expanded to include targeted taxation, inflation-linked taxation, taxation based on alcohol-by-volume (ABV), minimum pricing policies (general or targeted), bans of below-cost selling and restricting price-based promotions. Policy makers clearly need to consider how options compare in reducing harms at the populati...

The imposition of taxes on specific consumption goods and services (i.e. excise taxes) not only is a time-honoured activity but also makes common sense: government financing can be combined with other important social goals, in particular the reduction of externalities (costs imposed on other people) by making the taxed goods more expensive. Thus two goals can be attained at the same time, whic...

OBJECTIVE We examine the potential role for taxation in the tobacco endgame in New Zealand, where the goal is to become 'smokefree' (less than 5% smoking prevalence) by 2025. DESIGN Modelling study using a dynamic population model. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS New Zealand, Māori and non-Māori men and women. INTERVENTIONS Annual increases in tobacco excise tax of 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% (with 10%...

To measure how policy changes affect social welfare, economists typically look at how policies affect behavior, and use a formal model to infer welfare consequences from the behavioral responses. But when different models can map the same behavior to very different welfare impacts, it becomes hard to draw firm conclusions about many policies. An excellent example of this conundrum is the taxati...

Financial instability has increased for many economies in the face of greater capital mobility. Eliminating capital flows, especially portfolio investment flows, may reduce volatility, but it could also result in domestic capital constraints. To overcome this dilemma, policymakers may consider alternatives, such as progressive income taxation, that could raise domestic funds. In this paper, we ...

Tobacco-related mortality is one of the biggest killers in American medicine. Evidence suggests that if adolescents can be kept tobacco-free, most will never start using tobacco. Therefore, tobacco control policies directed at the youth population could provide an effective method for sustaining long-term reductions in smoking in all segments of the population. Many forms of tobacco control pol...

What factors influence state economic growth? This paper uses annual state (and local) data for the years 1947 to 1997 for the 48 contiguous states to estimate the effects of a large number of factors, including taxation and expenditure policies, on state economic growth. A special feature of the empirical work is the use of orthogonal distance regression (ODR) to deal with the likely presence ...