Publication: Long-Run Impacts of Increasing Tobacco Taxes: Evidence from South Africa
Loading...
Files in English
826 downloads
Date
2018-03
ISSN
Published
2018-03
Editor(s)
Abstract
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. The 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.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Fuchs, Alan; Del Carmen, Giselle; Mukong, Alfred Kechia. 2018. Long-Run Impacts of Increasing Tobacco Taxes: Evidence from South Africa. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8369. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29497 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Future of Poverty(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-15)Climate change is increasingly acknowledged as a critical issue with far-reaching socioeconomic implications that extend well beyond environmental concerns. Among the most pressing challenges is its impact on global poverty. This paper projects the potential impacts of unmitigated climate change on global poverty rates between 2023 and 2050. Building on a study that provided a detailed analysis of how temperature changes affect economic productivity, this paper integrates those findings with binned data from 217 countries, sourced from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform. By simulating poverty rates and the number of poor under two climate change scenarios, the paper uncovers some alarming trends. One of the primary findings is that the number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide could be nearly doubled due to climate change. In all scenarios, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to bear the brunt, contributing the largest number of poor people, with estimates ranging between 40.5 million and 73.5 million by 2050. Another significant finding is the disproportionate impact of inequality on poverty. Even small increases in inequality can lead to substantial rises in poverty levels. For instance, if every country’s Gini coefficient increases by just 1 percent between 2022 and 2050, an additional 8.8 million people could be pushed below the international poverty line by 2050. In a more extreme scenario, where every country’s Gini coefficient increases by 10 percent between 2022 and 2050, the number of people falling into poverty could rise by an additional 148.8 million relative to the baseline scenario. These findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive climate policies that not only mitigate environmental impacts but also address socioeconomic vulnerabilities.Publication Central Bank Independence and Sovereign Borrowing(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-25)This paper studies the impact of central bank independence on sovereign borrowing, using an index that captures institutional constraints on central bank lending to the government across 155 countries from 1972 to 2023. The findings show that tighter lending to the executive significantly reduces sovereign interest rates and raises the debt-to-gross domestic product ratio in developing countries. These effects reflect the executive’s improved ability to borrow at lower costs under greater central bank independence. The results are robust to multiple tests, but there are no significant effects in advanced economies. From a policy perspective, the results highlight the key role of independent central banks as catalysts for reducing governments’ borrowing costs and enhancing the government’s borrowing capacity.Publication Disentangling the Key Economic Channels through Which Infrastructure Affects Jobs(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)This paper takes stock of the literature on infrastructure and jobs published since the early 2000s, using a conceptual framework to identify the key channels through which different types of infrastructure impact jobs. Where relevant, it highlights the different approaches and findings in the cases of energy, digital, and transport infrastructure. Overall, the literature review provides strong evidence of infrastructure’s positive impact on employment, particularly for women. In the case of electricity, this impact arises from freeing time that would otherwise be spent on household tasks. Similarly, digital infrastructure, particularly mobile phone coverage, has demonstrated positive labor market effects, often driven by private sector investments rather than large public expenditures, which are typically required for other large-scale infrastructure projects. The evidence on structural transformation is also positive, with some notable exceptions, such as studies that find no significant impact on structural transformation in rural India in the cases of electricity and roads. Even with better market connections, remote areas may continue to lack economic opportunities, due to the absence of agglomeration economies and complementary inputs such as human capital. Accordingly, reducing transport costs alone may not be sufficient to drive economic transformation in rural areas. The spatial dimension of transformation is particularly relevant for transport, both internationally—by enhancing trade integration—and within countries, where economic development tends to drive firms and jobs toward urban centers, benefitting from economies scale and network effects. Turning to organizational transformation, evidence on skill bias in developing countries is more mixed than in developed countries and may vary considerably by context. Further research, especially on the possible reasons explaining the differences between developed and developing economies, is needed.Publication Crowding Out and Banking Crises(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-22)This paper studies the effect of government issuance on firm issuance during banking crises using transaction-level bond and loan data from 66 countries between 1991 and 2017. Governments rarely issue loans, preferring to issue in bond markets. In contrast, firms receive most of their financing from banks. During banking crises, as the supply of domestic loans decreases, firms switch to issuing bonds in domestic markets. The paper uses a novel instrument based on maturing debt to overcome the potential endogeneity of government issuance. The findings show that firms must compete with the government for funds in the domestic bond market and are crowded out from this market as a result. This happens not only in developing countries, but in advanced countries as well. The paper also shows that firms with the ability to tap international debt markets switch to these markets when crowding out occurs in domestic bond markets. Lastly, the paper shows that more developed domestic bond markets mitigate, but do not eliminate, the degree to which crowding out occurs.Publication Designing and Analyzing Powerful Experiments(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-22)This paper offers practical advice on how to improve statistical power in randomized experiments through choices and actions researchers can take at the design, implementation, and analysis stages. At the design stage, the choice of estimand, choice of treatment, and decisions that affect the residual variance and intra-cluster correlation can all affect power for a given sample size. At the implementation stage, researchers can boost power through increasing compliance with treatment, reducing attrition, and improving outcome measurement. At the analysis stage, power can be increased through using different test statistics or estimands, through the choice of control variables, and through incorporating informative priors in a Bayesian analysis. A key message is that it does not make sense to talk of “the” power of an experiment. A study can be well-powered for one outcome or estimand, but not others, and a fixed sample size can yield very different levels of power depending on researcher decisions.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
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.Publication The Distributional Effects of Tobacco Taxation(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-08)Despite the well-known positive impact of tobacco taxes on health outcomes, policy makers hesitate to use them because of their possible regressive effect, that is, poorer deciles are proportionally more negatively affected than richer ones. Using an extended cost-benefit analysis to estimate the distributional effect of white and clove cigarettes in Indonesia, this study finds that the long-run impact may be progressive. The final aggregate effect incorporates the negative price effect, but also changes in medical expenditures and additional working years. The analysis includes estimates of the distributional impacts of price rises on cigarettes under various scenarios using 2015–16 Indonesia National Socioeconomic Surveys. One contribution is to quantify the impacts by allowing price elasticities to vary across consumption deciles. Overall, clove cigarette taxes exert an effect that depends on the assumptions of conditional price elasticity. If the population is more responsive to tobacco price changes, then people would experience even more gains from the health and work benefits. More research is needed to clarify the distributional effects of tobacco taxation in Indonesia.Publication Economics of Tobacco Toolkit, Tool 4 : Design and Administer Tobacco Taxes(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013)The purpose of this tool is to help the reader understand the structure, design, and administration of tobacco taxes. There is no doubt about the adverse health impacts of tobacco use. In both developed and developing countries, the Ministries of health, tobacco interest groups, academia, and advocates against tobacco strongly believe that tobacco consumption should be reduced, and that tobacco taxes are the single most cost-effective policy tool to achieve this goal. This tool discusses some of the issues surrounding tobacco taxes from the perspectives of consumers, public health advocates, politicians, and government administrators. Guidance is provided in how to satisfy the goals of these players without compromising their interests. This tool is intended primarily for public health advocates, policy makers, tax administration staff, and government officials. Public health advocates will gain information on the various types of tobacco taxes and which type can best reduce cigarette consumption. The tool also discusses whether and how increased tobacco taxes create a financial burden on consumers, especially the poor. Since tobacco taxes are often justified from the public health perspective, this tool includes another point of view-that of the policy maker and the tax administrator. Designing and administering tobacco taxes is a process unique to every government. There are too many variables-from tobacco and tobacco product usage to the objective and purpose of taxation to the viable and most effective method of imposing and administering a tax-to allow for a general rule of thumb regarding tobacco excise taxes. Therefore, this tool cannot present universally applicable methods to apply, mathematical models or formulas to fulfill, or step-by-step instructions to follow. An excise tax is a tax on selected goods produced for sale within a country, or imported and sold in that country. The tax is usually collected from the producer/manufacturer/wholesaler or at the point of final sale to the consumer. An excise tax can be imposed on products and services if they have one or more of the characteristics. There are two general types of sales taxes: single-stage and multistage. Single stage sales taxes apply only at one stage of the production/distribution chain. Multi-stage sales taxes apply at several stages of the production/distribution chain for a product or service. The value-added tax (VAT) is a general indirect tax on consumption.Publication The Distributional of Impacts of Cigarette Taxation in Bangladesh(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-06-01)Despite the obvious positive health impacts of tobacco taxation, an argument raised against it is that poor households bear the burden of the increased prices because of their higher share of spending on tobacco. This report includes estimates of the distributional impacts of price rises on cigarettes under various scenarios using the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2016/17. One contribution of this analysis is to quantify the impacts by allowing price elasticities to vary across consumption deciles. This shows that an increase in the price of cigarettes in Bangladesh has small consumption impacts and does not significantly change the poverty rate or consumption inequality. These findings stem from relatively even cigarette consumption patterns between less and more welloff households. These results hold even if one considers some small substitution through the use of bidis, which are largely consumed by the poor. The short-term consumption impacts are also negligible compared with the estimated gains because of savings in medical costs and the greater number of productive years of life.Publication Economics of Tobacco Toolkit, Tool 6 : Equity Issues, Tobacco, and the Poor(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013)Currently there are approximately 4 million tobacco related deaths annually. If present trends continue, by the year 2030 the number of deaths will soar to about 10 million annual deaths, with 7 million in low-income countries. However, government action to establish various tobacco control initiatives can prevent this from happening and save a significant number of lives. Tobacco control measures include: i) raising tobacco prices by imposing higher excise taxes; ii) advertising and marketing bans and restrictions; and iii) clean indoor air provisions. A popular and valid concern holds that raising tobacco excise taxes for the purposes of tobacco control imposes an untenable and unfair burden on the poor. In short, it is argued that higher tobacco excise taxes increase inequality in the post-tax distribution of income and reduces the real incomes of a particularly vulnerable group, the poor. This tool discusses a number of approaches in which to examine the validity of this argument. Techniques to analyze the impact of tobacco consumption and tobacco taxes on the poor are explained. And analytical methods using country-specific data are examined so that policy analysts can effectively address concerns about the poor, tobacco consumption, and tobacco control policies.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication Doing Business 2020(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020)Doing Business 2020 is the 17th in a series of annual studies investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. It provides quantitative indicators covering 12 areas of the business environment in 190 economies. The goal of the Doing Business series is to provide objective data for use by governments in designing sound business regulatory policies and to encourage research on the important dimensions of the regulatory environment for firms.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.Publication Collapse and Recovery(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023)Worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has been an enormous shock to mortality, economies, and daily life. But what has received insufficient attention is the impact of the pandemic on the accumulation of human capital—the health, education, and skills—of young people. How large was the setback, and how far are we still from a recovery? Collapse and Recovery estimates the impacts of the pandemic on the human capital of young children, school-age children, and youth and discusses the urgent actions needed to reverse the damage. It shows that there was a collapse of human capital and that, unless that collapse is remedied, it is a time bomb for countries. Specifically, the report documents alarming declines in cognitive and social-emotional development among young children, which could translate into a 25 percent reduction in their earnings as adults. It finds that 1 billion children in low- and middle-income countries missed at least one year of in-person schooling. And despite enormous efforts in remote learning, children did not learn during the unprecedentedly long school closures, which could reduce future lifetime earnings around the world by US$21 trillion. The report quantifies the dramatic drops in employment and skills among youth that resulted from the pandemic as well as the substantial increase in the number of youth neither employed nor enrolled in education or training. In all of these age groups, the impacts of the pandemic were consistently worse for children from poorer backgrounds. These losses call for immediate action. The good news is that evidence-based policies can recover these losses. Collapse and Recovery reviews governments’ responses to the pandemic, assessing why there was a collapse in human capital accumulation, what was missing in the policy architecture to protect human capital during the crisis, and how governments can better prepare to withstand future shocks. It offers concrete policy recommendations to recover losses in human capital—programs that will end up paying for themselves in the long term. To better prepare for future shocks such as climate change and wars, the report emphasizes the need for solutions that bring health, education, and social protection programs together in an integrated human development system. If countries fail to act, the losses in human capital documented in this report will become permanent and last for multiple generations. The time to act is now.Publication A Blue Transformation for Pacific Maritime Transport: Overarching Regional Transport(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-06-29)This report has eight chapters. Following the introduction (Pacific Peoples and the Sea), the next six chapters each focus on a separate significant component of Pacific maritime transport, analyzing the major influences and challenges, and, where relevant, key areas for future attention. The topics are: international shipping, gateway ports, domestic maritime transport, four related sectors, cruise ship tourism, tuna fisheries, fossil fuel imports, and bulk shipping, natural disasters and climate resilience, and sector governance and institutions. The final chapter, transforming pacific maritime transport, ways forward, distils the report’s findings into the most significant and far-reaching opportunities to transform maritime transport in the Pacific. These are grouped into three broad themes, infrastructure, services, and governance and capacity building. Ways Forward comes at the end and, for readers unable to view the whole report, is a good place to begin. The rest of this executive summary explains why the Pacific is a special case for investment and provides a summary of the main chapters and findings. But first, it describes which Pacific Island countries contributed to the study.