Health Economics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Tob Control. 2010 Feb;19(1):58-64. doi: 10.1136/tc.2009.031799. Epub 2009 Dec 11.
To identify key economic issues involved in raising the tobacco tax and to recommend possible options for tobacco tax reform in China.
Estimated price elasticities of the demand for cigarettes, prevalence data and epidemiology are used to estimate the impact of a tobacco tax increase on cigarette consumption, government tax revenue, lives saved, employment and revenue loss in the cigarette industry and tobacco farming.
The recent Chinese tax adjustment, if passed along to the retail price, would reduce the number of smokers by 630,000 saving 210,000 lives, at a price elasticity of -0.15. A tax increase of 1 RMB (or US$0.13) per pack of cigarettes would increase the Chinese government's tax revenue by 129 billion RMB (US 17.2 billion), decrease consumption by 3.0 billion packs of cigarettes, reduce the number of smokers by 3.42 million and save 1.14 million lives.
The empirical economic analysis and tax simulation results clearly indicate that increasing the tobacco tax in China is the most cost-effective instrument for tobacco control.
确定提高烟草税所涉及的关键经济问题，并为中国的烟草税改革推荐可能的选择。
利用香烟需求的价格弹性估计、流行数据和流行病学数据，来估计增加烟草税对香烟消费、政府税收、挽救的生命、烟草行业和烟草种植的就业和收入损失的影响。
如果将最近的中国税收调整全部转嫁给零售价格，在价格弹性为-0.15 的情况下，将减少 63 万烟民，挽救 21 万人的生命。每包香烟增加 1 元（或 0.13 美元）的税收，将使中国政府的税收增加 1290 亿元（172 亿美元），减少消费 30 亿包香烟，减少 342 万烟民，挽救 114 万人的生命。
经验经济分析和税收模拟结果清楚地表明，提高中国的烟草税是控制烟草最具成本效益的工具。
