Fred Kuchler, Abebayehu Tegene & J. Michael Harris (all of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) – Economic Research Service (ERS)) have posted Taxing Snack Foods: Manipulating Diet Quality or Financing Information Programs? on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This paper investigates consumers’ likely response to a proposed tax on snack foods that addresses public health issues generated by rising U.S. obesity rates. We estimate demands for particular snack foods and show they are price inelastic after accounting for quality variation. We calculate impacts of a range of ad valorem taxes on the demand for salty snack food. The impacts on dietary quality are small, and negligible at the lower tax rates. If taxes were earmarked for funding information programs, as several proponents suggest, taxes would generate a revenue stream the public health community could use for nutrition education.
One response to “Kuchler, Tegene & Harris on Taxing Snack Foods”
And what about people for whom snack foods are not only healthy but necessary? For example, hypoglycemic individuals need to munch in order to prevent fainting. What about people whose metabolisms require the intake of large numbers of calories?
Even fat is a health food, taken in moderation. Try cutting all fat out of the diet. The result is very bad.
The question is whether there is some way to tax junk food that causes a bad result, rather than presuming that junk food (however defined) is like a cigarette that always causes a bad result.
And what of food that is not “junk food” as commonly known, but too much of which is bad? Should there be a tax on red meat? A tax on cheese?
Perhaps a tax on people who refuse to visit doctors for preventive care, and a tax on people who refuse to follow doctor’s orders, would be worth investigating.