Wang Lingxiao, Zheng Yuqing, Buck Steven, Dong Diansheng, Kaiser Harry M
Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 40546, USA.
Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, U.S, Washington, DC, 20024, USA.
Health Econ Rev. 2021 Feb 13;11(1):5. doi: 10.1186/s13561-021-00306-2.
Grocery food taxes represent a stable tax revenue stream for state and municipal government during times of adverse economic shocks such as that observed under the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Previous research, however, suggests a possible mechanism through which grocery taxes may adversely affect health. Our objectives are to document the spatial and temporal variation in grocery taxes and to empirically examine the statistical relationship between county-level grocery taxes and obesity and diabetes.
We collect and assemble a novel national dataset of annual county and state-level grocery taxes from 2009 through 2016. We link this data to three-year, county-level estimates based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on rates of obesity and diabetes and provide a nation-wide spatial characterization of grocery taxes and these two health outcomes. Using a county-level fixed effects estimator, we estimate the effect of grocery taxes on obesity and diabetes rates, also controlling for a subset of potential confounders that vary over time.
We find a 1 percentage point increase in grocery taxes is associated with 0.588 and 0.215 percentage point increases in the county-level obesity and diabetes rates.
Counties with grocery taxes have increased prevalence of obesity and diabetes. We estimate the economic burden of increased obesity and diabetes rates resulting from grocery taxes to be $5.9 billion. Based on this estimate, the benefit-cost ratio of removing grocery taxes across the United States only considering the effects on obesity and diabetes rates is 1.90.
在面临诸如2019冠状病毒病（COVID - 19）大流行期间所观察到的不利经济冲击时，食品杂货税为州和市政府提供了稳定的税收收入来源。然而，先前的研究提出了一种可能的机制，通过该机制食品杂货税可能对健康产生不利影响。我们的目标是记录食品杂货税的时空变化，并实证检验县级食品杂货税与肥胖症和糖尿病之间的统计关系。
我们收集并整理了一个新颖的全国性数据集，该数据集包含2009年至2016年县级和州级年度食品杂货税信息。我们将这些数据与基于疾病控制与预防中心关于肥胖症和糖尿病发病率数据的三年期县级估计值相链接，并对食品杂货税以及这两种健康结果进行全国范围的空间特征描述。使用县级固定效应估计器，我们估计食品杂货税对肥胖症和糖尿病发病率的影响，同时还控制了随时间变化的一部分潜在混杂因素。
我们发现食品杂货税增加1个百分点与县级肥胖症和糖尿病发病率分别增加0.588个百分点和0.215个百分点相关。
征收食品杂货税的县肥胖症和糖尿病的患病率有所上升。我们估计食品杂货税导致的肥胖症和糖尿病发病率上升所带来的经济负担为59亿美元。基于这一估计，仅考虑对肥胖症和糖尿病发病率的影响，在美国取消食品杂货税的效益成本比为1.90。
