Alcohol consumption is associated with costs to society due to its impact on crime and health. Tax can lead consumers to internalise these externalities. We study optimal corrective taxation in the alcohol market. We allow for the fact that the externality generating commodity (ethanol) is...

In Germany there is one tax on tobacco and also five different taxes on alcohol. The tax revenues of 2012 amounted to 17.4 billion euros. But neither tobacco nor alcohol taxes can be sufficiently legitimised. The taxes collide with the principle of tax equality and cannot be justified on the...

This paper studies the cross-border health and productivity effects of alcohol taxes. We estimate the effect of a large cut in the Finnish alcohol tax on mortality, alcohol related illnesses and work absenteeism in Sweden. This tax cut led to large differences in the prices of alcoholic...

This paper studies the cross-border health and productivity effects of alcohol taxes. We estimate the effect of a large cut in the Finnish alcohol tax on mortality, alcohol related illnesses and work absenteeism in Sweden. This tax cut led to large differences in the prices of alcoholic...

We develop an analytical framework for assessing corrective taxes and other policies to reduce alcohol-related externalities and apply it to the US, UK, Sweden, and Finland. The corrective tax estimates for the European countries fall short of current taxes and vice versa for the US (where...

The recent debate on alcohol tax reform and recommendations from the Henry Tax Review in Australia have highlighted the need for quantifying externalities of excessive alcohol consumption by beverage types. This paper presents micro-level information from the Australian National Drug Strategy...

As part of a comprehensive review of Australias tax system, the taxes on alcoholic beverages recently came under scrutiny. In its initial response to the review in May 2010, the government chose to not change those taxes, even though the review recommended the wine tax switch from an ad valorem...

In most countries, including Australia, special excise and other taxes are imposed on beer, wine and spirits. This paper reviews the market failure arguments for special taxation of alcoholic beverages, evaluates the pros and cons of different externality correction taxes in terms of the tax...

Nearly all countries tax the domestic consumption of alcoholic beverages. However, the rates of taxation, and the tax instruments used, vary enormously between countries. This paper provides estimates, for a wide range of high-income and developing countries, of the consumer tax equivalents...

We provide economy-wide modeling results of the national and regional implications of two current challenges facing the Australian wine industry: a decline in export demand for premium wines, and a possible change in the tax on domestic wine sales following the Henry Review of Taxation. The...

This paper provides a first attempt to estimate the cross-price elasticity between alcoholic beverages and leisure, which is critical for assessing how much alcohol taxation might be warranted on fiscal grounds. We estimate an Almost Ideal Demand System defined over alcohol, leisure, and other...

This paper develops and implements an analytical framework for estimating the optimal levels and welfare effects of alcohol taxes and drunk-driver penalties, accounting for externalities and how policies interact with the broader fiscal system. We find that the fiscal component of the optimal...

We analyse Swedes’ opinions about the level of taxation for eleven different taxes to see what taxes people are most reluctant to and why. The most unpopular tax is the real estate tax, while the corporate tax is the least unpopular. We find a strong self interest effect in attitudes, and for...

"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. On January 1, 1991, the federal excise tax on beer doubled, and the tax rates on wine and liquor increased as well. These changes are...