Both theory and recent trends suggest some optimism for the future of environmentrelated taxes. While new research emphasizes the potentially significant distortions created by environmental taxes and appears to undermine the so-called "double dividend" theory, it also suggests that virtually any environmental policy, including regulations, taxes, and tradable permits, can compound existing dis...

OBJECTIVE To describe variation in Tobacco Institute (TI) lobbying expenditures across states and test whether these expenditures vary in relationship to measures of tobacco control activity at the state level. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE Data for this study came from the TI's State Activities Division (SAD) annual budgets for the years 1991-97, excluding 1993. These data include budgetary informati...

In their recent article Roache and Gostin outline why governments and public health advocates should embrace soda taxes. The evidence is strong and continues to grow: such taxes can change consumer behavior, generate significant revenue and incentivize product reformulation. In essence, such taxes are an important and now well-established instrument of fiscal and public health policy. In this c...

BACKGROUND Taxes on alcohol and tobacco have long been an important means of raising revenues for public spending in many countries but there is increasing interest in using taxes on these, and other unhealthy products, to achieve public health goals. We present a systematic review of the research on health taxes, and aim to generate insights into how such taxes can: (i) reduce consumption of t...

The neglect of administrative issues is a serious limitation of optimal tax theory, with implications for its practical applicability. We focus on an important class of administrative problems, namely that the tax bases are measured with some error. We also consider the full set of tax instruments. We find that consumption taxes can perform the ‘social insurance role of taxation’, a role previo...

In recent years, with the implementation of the tax rate increases and ad hoc earnings base increases included in the 1977 amendments to the Social Security Act, many observers have noted that Social Security taxes (for the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI), Disability Insurance (DI), and Hospital Insurance (HI) programs combined) now exceed Federal income taxes for many families. A compar...

This paper surveys recent research findings concerning th& size and importance of labor-supply changes resulting from U.S. income taxes and transfers. Our review of the literature of recent years leads us to conclude that the aggregate amount of work reduction that is attributable to taxes and transfers is relatively modest. Moreover, this reduction may be partly offset by the beneficial effect...

Soft drink consumption has been hypothesized as one of the major factors in the growing rates of obesity in the US. Nearly two-thirds of all states currently tax soft drinks using excise taxes, sales taxes, or special exemptions to food exemptions from sales taxes to reduce consumption of this product, raise revenue, and improve public health. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of changes in...

Once we get over the current global economic crisis, most developed nations will need to raise significant revenues to pay for their recent economic stimulus packages as well as for their ongoing social welfare systems. Achim Kemmerling’s book will provide policymakers with some important insights about which taxes to increase and what the consequences are for labor markets. Kemmerling observes...

Government is to fund 1 000 PhDs across health disciplines over the next decade and add clinical research centres to hospitals earmarked for revitalisation so that it can build relevant evidence-based knowledge into the public health system - and begin tackling the crisis in clinical research.