The link between health problems and the consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) has been widely studied. A large array of diseases is associated with tobacco, ranging from lung cancer and stroke to congenital malformations in children. Similarly, SSB consumption...

Virtually all fiscal measures influence people's health, through their impacts on behaviour, consumption, income and wealth. A narrow subset of fiscal measures, however, can be more directly aimed at improving health by targeting behaviours and risks that are known to be strongly associated with...

Consumption of addictive goods is subject to habit formation. Forward-looking individuals must, therefore, be concerned about future prices when making current consumption decisions. We study prices for tobacco products based on a unique data set provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Our...

We find that sin good purchases are highly concentrated with 10% of households paying more than 80% of taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. Total sin tax burdens are poorly explained by demographics (including income), but are well explained by eight household clusters defined by purchasing...

In 2016, the Surgeon General used longitudinal cohort studies to conclude that youth e-cigarette use is strongly associated with cigarette use. We re-evaluate data from the period of time before the writing of the Surgeon General report, using quasi-experimental methods, and reach the opposite...

We find that sin good purchases are highly concentrated with 10% of households paying more than 80% of taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. Total sin tax burdens are poorly explained by demographics (including income), but are well explained by eight household clusters defined by purchasing...