Marinello Samantha, Leider Julien, Pugach Oksana, Powell Lisa M
Division of Health Policy and Administration, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1603 W. Taylor Street, M/C 923, Chicago, IL, 60612-4394, USA; Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1747 W. Roosevelt Road, M/C 275, Chicago, IL, 60608-1264, USA.
Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1747 W. Roosevelt Road, M/C 275, Chicago, IL, 60608-1264, USA.
Econ Hum Biol. 2021 Jan;40:100939. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2020.100939. Epub 2020 Oct 29.
Prevalence of obesity and other diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have continued to rise for decades in the United States. In addition to adverse health consequences, these diseases have led to substantial economic costs in the form of medical expenses and productivity losses. To address the rise in NCDs, excise taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are increasingly proposed and implemented as a policy tool for improving dietary intake and population health. To date, few empirical studies have evaluated the potential unintended economic effects of these taxes. In this paper, we examine the impact of the Philadelphia, PA, sweetened beverage tax (applied to both SSBs and artificially sweetened beverages) on employment in key industries that sell sweetened beverages as well as on net total employment. Drawing on monthly employment count data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics from January 2012 through June 2019, we conducted a synthetic control analysis of total, private sector, limited-service restaurant, and convenience store employment. The synthetic controls reproduced nearly identical pre-tax employment trends to Philadelphia and had similar values of important predictors. In the post-tax period, Philadelphia employment was not lower, on average, than the synthetic control employment for each outcome. Placebo tests suggested a null effect of the tax, and the results were robust to changes in predictors and control site criteria. Overall, we did not find that the sweetened beverage tax resulted in job losses up to two and a half years after the tax was implemented. These findings are consistent with other peer-reviewed modeling and empirical papers on the employment and unemployment effects of sweetened beverage taxes.
在美国，肥胖症及其他与饮食相关的非传染性疾病（NCDs）的患病率几十年来持续上升。除了对健康产生不良影响外，这些疾病还导致了以医疗费用和生产力损失形式存在的巨大经济成本。为应对非传染性疾病的增加，对含糖饮料（SSBs）征收消费税作为一种改善饮食摄入和人口健康的政策工具，越来越多地被提出并实施。迄今为止，很少有实证研究评估这些税收可能产生的意外经济影响。在本文中，我们研究了宾夕法尼亚州费城的含糖饮料税（适用于含糖饮料和人工甜味饮料）对销售含糖饮料的关键行业就业以及总就业净额的影响。利用美国劳工统计局2（Bureau of Labor Statistics）2012年1月至2019年6月的月度就业人数数据，我们对总就业、私营部门就业、有限服务餐厅就业和便利店就业进行了综合控制分析。综合控制重现了与费城几乎相同的税前就业趋势，并且重要预测指标的值相似。在税后时期，费城的就业平均而言并不低于每个结果的综合控制就业。安慰剂检验表明该税没有效果，并且结果对预测指标和控制地点标准的变化具有稳健性。总体而言，我们没有发现含糖饮料税在实施后的两年半内导致就业岗位减少。这些发现与其他关于含糖饮料税对就业和失业影响的同行评审建模和实证论文一致。
