Nova School of Business and Economics, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus de Carcavelos, Rua da Holanda 1, 2775-405, Carcavelos, Portugal.
Soc Sci Med. 2020 Nov;264:113332. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113332. Epub 2020 Sep 2.
Increasing obesity-related problems and rising healthcare expenditures have led governments in developed countries to consider the introduction of soda taxes. We study a recent such tax, implemented in Portugal in February 2017 -one of the first soda taxes worldwide that increases with sugar content (0.08 euros per liter for drinks with less than 80 g of sugar per liter, and 0.16 euros per liter for drinks with 80 g or more sugar per liter, plus VAT). We use extremely detailed panel data from one of the two largest retailers in the country, covering the period between February 2015 and January 2018. We take advantage of the tax breakdown by sugar levels to examine how soda prices and quantities purchased reacted. For identification, we rely on difference-in-differences models with various vectors of fixed effects, comparing each group of products to water. For drinks with more than 80 g of sugar per liter, results indicate almost full price pass-through to the consumer. For drinks with less than 80 g of sugar per liter, price pass-through surpassed 100%. Regarding consumption, our findings suggest stockpiling behavior in the quarter when the tax was approved and before it was actually implemented. In the implementation period, there are no significant changes in quantities purchased for most beverages vis-à-vis water, with the exception of soda drinks with comparatively low levels of sugar. This suggests that benefits of the soda tax in terms of reducing sugar intake are mainly due to reformulation, as producers reduced the sugar content of some drinks to fall below the 80 g per liter threshold.
肥胖相关问题的日益增多和医疗保健支出的不断上升，促使发达国家的政府考虑引入苏打水税。我们研究了最近在葡萄牙实施的一项此类税收政策，该政策于 2017 年 2 月实施，是全球首批随糖含量增加的苏打水税之一（对于每升糖含量低于 80 克的饮料，每升征收 0.08 欧元，对于每升糖含量 80 克或以上的饮料，每升征收 0.16 欧元，外加增值税）。我们利用该国两大零售商之一的极其详细的面板数据，涵盖了 2015 年 2 月至 2018 年 1 月的期间。我们利用按糖含量细分的税收来研究苏打水价格和购买量的反应。为了进行识别，我们依赖于具有各种固定效应向量的差异差异模型，将每一组产品与水进行比较。对于每升糖含量超过 80 克的饮料，结果表明几乎完全将价格转嫁给了消费者。对于每升糖含量低于 80 克的饮料，价格转嫁给消费者的比例超过了 100%。关于消费，我们的研究结果表明，在税收获得批准并在实际实施之前的那个季度，存在囤货行为。在实施期间，除了糖含量相对较低的苏打水外，对于大多数饮料相对于水的购买量没有显著变化。这表明，苏打水税在减少糖摄入量方面的好处主要归因于配方改革，因为生产商降低了一些饮料的糖含量，使其低于 80 克/升的阈值。
