Publication: The Welfare and Distributional Effects of Increasing Taxes on Tobacco in Vietnam
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Date
2019-06
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2019-06
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This paper assesses the welfare and distributional effects of raising taxes on tobaccoin Vietnam. Tobacco taxes are recognized as effective policy tools to reduce tobaccoconsumption and to improve health outcomes. However, policy makers often hesitateto use them because of claims of their potentially regressive effects. According to thoseclaims, poorer households are particularly hurt by tobacco tax policies, as cigarettepurchases represent a larger share of their budgets relative to higher-income smokers.The paper argues that the claims on the regressive effects of tobacco tax policies arebased on naive, shortsighted, and incorrect estimations. Tobacco-related illnessesdamage health outcomes and the quality of the lives of smokers and their families, whilethey also cost billions of dollars in medical expenditures and losses in human capital andproductivity every year. Tobacco consumption imposes heavy economic burdens onhouseholds and governments, in addition to its well-known negative health and socialimpacts. Raising taxes on cigarettes dissuades consumption, hence improving healthoutcomes, adverting premature deaths, and reducing direct and indirect economic costs.The analysis applies the Extended Cost Benefit Analysis (ECBA) methodology to simulateempirically the costs, as well as the benefits of increasing the prices on cigarettes onthe welfare of Vietnamese households. Following a well-established body of literature,the ECBA acknowledges that there may be short-term direct negative effects of raisingprices on tobacco, as smokers can struggle to continue to purchase tobacco with theirunchanged household budgets. However, the model also incorporates two of the mainbenefits of reducing tobacco consumption by increasing taxes: (a) the reduction insmoking-related medical expenses borne by households and (b) the additional incomesthat households can earn by preventing years of productive life lost due to smoking attributablepremature deaths. A critical contribution of the ECBA is to incorporate decile-specific price elasticities of demand for cigarettes, to quantify the behavioral responses or sensitivity of smokers in different income groups to changes in cigarette prices. To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first available empirical exercise to estimate price elasticities by income decile in Vietnam. Consistent with the literature and with empirical findings in other countries, the price elasticities of demand for cigarettes are larger for lower-income households. Lower income smokers are likely to reduce their tobacco consumption more drastically, when faced with a price increase. The ultimate distributional effect on welfare of the increasein the price of cigarettes due to tax increases will then depend on assessing the potentialbenefits against the short-term costs.
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“Fuchs Tarlovsky, Alan; Gonzalez Icaza, Fernanda. 2019. The Welfare and Distributional Effects of Increasing Taxes on Tobacco in Vietnam. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32062 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Taxing Tobacco in Georgia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-01)This paper analyzes the welfare and distributional impacts of increasing taxes on cigarettes in Georgia. Increasing taxes on tobacco is an effective measure to reduce smoking. According to some estimates, increasing tobacco taxes could save more than GEL 3.6 billion and 53 thousand lives over a 15-year period. However, concerns over potentially regressive effects on the poor are often raised. An Extended Cost Benefit Analysis (ECBA) is applied to simulate the welfare and distributional impacts of raising prices on cigarettes. Decile-specific price elasticities of demand are estimated to account for heterogenous behavioral responses of different income groups. Empirical estimations confirm that poorer households in Georgia tend to reduce consumption more intensely when faced with higher tobacco prices. The estimated magnitude and distribution of elasticities are comparable to peer countries. The simulations based on household survey data suggest that the long-term net distributional effects of increasing taxes on cigarettes in Georgia are likely progressive. Incorporating the indirect benefits of reduced smoking -- reductions in medical expenses and earnings from adverted premature deaths -- could bring small, albeit positive, income gains for large sectors of the population. The magnitude of those benefits is most significant among lower-income households, potentially contributing to lift them out of poverty.Publication Increasing Taxes on Tobacco in Low and Middle-Income Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-07)Policy makers hesitate to increase tobacco taxes over concerns about taxes being regressive and potentially increasing poverty and inequality. This note summarizes a set of studies of the effects of raising tobacco taxes in 11 low and middle-income countries using an extended cost-benefit analysis (ECBA) and harmonized national household budget survey data and introduces the TOBACTAX Tool. The studies find that demand price elasticities for tobacco products are larger among lower-income households and that the poor receive the largest long-term gains from tobacco taxation. Tobacco taxes have progressive long-term effects due to lower medical expenses and added years of productive life, which contribute to poverty reduction in most countries studied. TOBACTAX Tool can help replicate such analyses elsewhere.Publication Is Tobacco Taxation Regressive? Evidence on Public Health, Domestic Resource Mobilization, and Equity Improvements(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-04-01)Tobacco taxes are recognized as an effective policy tool to reduce tobacco consumption and improve health outcomes; however, policy makers often hesitate to use them because of their possible regressive effects. This report assesses the ability of taxes on tobacco to improve future health and welfare outcomes, with a focus on their distributional impact and effects on the poor. In addition to adverse consequences on health and quality of life of smokers and their family members, tobacco-related illnesses cost billions of dollars in medical expenditures and losses in human capital and productivity, imposing heavy economic tolls on households and governments. Developing countries bear a high and increasing share of the economic burden of tobacco. However, traditional analyses often overlook the many economic benefits of reducing tobacco consumption. This report presents empirical findings using an extended cost benefit analysis (ECBA) methodology, to incorporate a more comprehensive view of the costs and benefits of increasing prices of tobacco on household welfare, and to assess their distributional impact by accounting for different consumer behaviors across income groups. Evidence for several countries shows that large price shocks on cigarettes can generate progressive and welfare-improving medium and long-term net impacts, that particularly improve welfare of lower-income households. Large shares of societies—and particularly the poor—can benefit from positive income gains by reducing tobacco-related medical expenses and avoiding premature deaths. Moreover, additional fiscal revenues generated may be used to further enhance measures to control tobacco and promote equity. Ultimately, the benefits and distributional impact of raising taxes on tobacco will depend on the ability of policy to understand and to leverage consumers' responses toward quitting tobacco, and to target comprehensive interventions to help the most vulnerable groups.Publication Distributional Effects of Tobacco Taxation(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-04)Tobacco taxes have positive impacts on health outcomes. However, policy makers often hesitate to use them because of the perception that poorer households are affected disproportionally more than richer households. This study compares the simulated distributional effects of tobacco tax increases in eight low- and middle-income countries. It applies a standardized extended cost-benefit analysis methodology and relies on comparable data sources across countries. The net effect of raising taxes on cigarettes encompasses the direct negative price shock to household budgets and the long-term benefits of improved health outcomes. The distributional incidence is assessed by estimating decile-specific behavioral responses and relative income gains. The comparative results do not support the claim that tobacco taxes are necessarily regressive. Although welfare losses from the first-order price shock disproportionally affect the poor, these negative shocks are attenuated by greater price-responsiveness among lower-income groups and further offset by higher long-term relative gains through reduced medical expenditures and additional years of productive life as taxes dissuade smoking. In several countries, increasing the price of cigarettes is pro-poor and welfare improving for a large share of the population. Along with raising taxes, policy should aim at encouraging responsiveness to price changes and target tobacco-related medical expenses that disproportionally burden the poor.Publication Long-Run Impacts of Increasing Tobacco Taxes(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-02-26)Tobacco taxes are considered an effective policy tool to reduce tobacco consumption and produce long-run benefits that outweigh the costs associated with a price increase. Through this policy, some of the most adverse effects and economic costs of smoking can be reduced, including shorter life expectancy, higher medical expenses, added years of disability among smokers, and the effects of secondhand smoke. Nonetheless, tobacco taxes are often considered regressive because low-income households tend to allocate a larger share of their budgets to purchasing tobacco products. This paper uses an extended cost-benefit analysis to estimate the distributional effect of tobacco taxes on household welfare in South Africa. The analysis considers the effect on household income through an increase in tobacco prices, changes in medical expenses, and the prolongation of working years. Results indicate that a rise in tobacco prices initially generates negative income variations across all groups in the population. If benefits through lower medical expenses and an expansion in working years are considered, the negative effect is reduced, particularly in medium- and upper-bound elasticities. Consequently, the aggregate net effect is progressive and benefits the bottom deciles more than the richer ones. Overall, tobacco tax increases exert a small, but positive effect in the presence of low conditional tobacco price elasticity. If the population is more responsive to tobacco price changes (or participation elasticity estimates are included) then they would experience even more gains from the health and work benefits. More research is needed to clarify the distributional effects of tobacco taxation in South Africa.
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