One thing I don’t see here is a discussion of the taxes themselves, either in terms of their effects on those who pay them or on the governments that collect them.
I suppose we have something like:
− some CE for the amount of taxes paid
+ some CE for the government’s use of the money (either lower taxes elsewhere, increased government programs, etc.)
− some CE for the effect on government corruption (either that the tax revenues themselves are stolen, or that the administration of tax is used as an opportunity for bribery)
− some CE for the cost (to the government) of administering the program
To clarify, on top of charity costs, we do look at the cost to the government of implementing the tax (the WHO has a whole table of useful data on the cost of various health interventions); that said, we discount this cost to some extent because it’s counterfactually less valuable than EA expenditure.
Beyond the health impact of the taxes, we only looked at the disvalue people place on reduced freedom of choice. We chose not to model the use of the taxes and took them to be just a lump sump transfer—not just quite accurate given regressivity concerns (since the poor are disproportionately likely to suffer the tax) but this is balanced out (since the poor are disproportionately likely to benefit in terms of improved health and subsequent greater earnings).
Corruption is an interesting issue, but I’m unsure if the evidence is particularly strong, or even which direction it goes—if you have higher revenues you can pay your officials more, reducing the risk of corruption. It’s probably a choice, at the end of the day, whether or not you want to model this as an extraneous adjustment factor—my sense is that we wouldn’t have much confidence in the adjustment, regardless, and so it wasn’t worth trying given lack of time.
I can’t speak for a sugar tax, but if it’s anything like a tobacco tax, the numbers end up being pretty good.
Tobacco taxation according to WHO is not only the most effective but also the most cost effective for enforcement.
Yes, corruption can reduce the positive value of the government revenue, but tobacco taxes are such a windfall that you need Mobutu-level embezzlement for revenue to not make it’s way back to government programs.
A recent success story was Colombia that tripled their tobacco tax over the course of 2 years. Consumption was cut by a third and the revenue doubled the budget of their national health service.
Tobacco taxes (and maybe a sugar tax?) are technically regressive taxes, however the poor disproportionately reap the financial and health benefits because they are the most price sensitive and the ones most targeted by Big Tobacco.
One thing I don’t see here is a discussion of the taxes themselves, either in terms of their effects on those who pay them or on the governments that collect them.
I suppose we have something like:
− some CE for the amount of taxes paid
+ some CE for the government’s use of the money (either lower taxes elsewhere, increased government programs, etc.)
− some CE for the effect on government corruption (either that the tax revenues themselves are stolen, or that the administration of tax is used as an opportunity for bribery)
− some CE for the cost (to the government) of administering the program
What do you think?
To clarify, on top of charity costs, we do look at the cost to the government of implementing the tax (the WHO has a whole table of useful data on the cost of various health interventions); that said, we discount this cost to some extent because it’s counterfactually less valuable than EA expenditure.
Beyond the health impact of the taxes, we only looked at the disvalue people place on reduced freedom of choice. We chose not to model the use of the taxes and took them to be just a lump sump transfer—not just quite accurate given regressivity concerns (since the poor are disproportionately likely to suffer the tax) but this is balanced out (since the poor are disproportionately likely to benefit in terms of improved health and subsequent greater earnings).
Corruption is an interesting issue, but I’m unsure if the evidence is particularly strong, or even which direction it goes—if you have higher revenues you can pay your officials more, reducing the risk of corruption. It’s probably a choice, at the end of the day, whether or not you want to model this as an extraneous adjustment factor—my sense is that we wouldn’t have much confidence in the adjustment, regardless, and so it wasn’t worth trying given lack of time.
I can’t speak for a sugar tax, but if it’s anything like a tobacco tax, the numbers end up being pretty good.
Tobacco taxation according to WHO is not only the most effective but also the most cost effective for enforcement.
Yes, corruption can reduce the positive value of the government revenue, but tobacco taxes are such a windfall that you need Mobutu-level embezzlement for revenue to not make it’s way back to government programs.
A recent success story was Colombia that tripled their tobacco tax over the course of 2 years. Consumption was cut by a third and the revenue doubled the budget of their national health service.
Tobacco taxes (and maybe a sugar tax?) are technically regressive taxes, however the poor disproportionately reap the financial and health benefits because they are the most price sensitive and the ones most targeted by Big Tobacco.