Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/202849 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 75
Publisher: 
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza (DISCE), Milano
Abstract: 
We study the impact of a hypothetical tax on sugar - sweetened beverages (SSBs) on the US households' nutrients purchase, welfare change, and health benefit. Differently from the traditional approach, Food at Home(FAH) is here defined as a "home" good instead than a market good and consumers' demands derived under the assumption that households maximize utility subject to both a money and a time constraint. The model is estimated by using an incomplete approximate Exact Affine Stone Index (EASI) demand system on a data set built by merging the most recent waves of the US consumer expenditure and time use surveys. Results show that a SSB tax would be much more effective in decreasing household nutrients purchase than it would appear by estimating a model neglecting time costs in home food production. A tax induced increased in SSB price by 20% is predicted to decrease the per capita energy purchase by 29.17 kcal/day. The annual health benefits of the tax, measured only in terms of reduced medical expenditure, would overcome estimated welfare losses by more than $400 million.
Subjects: 
Sugar-sweetened beverage tax
Obesity
Household Production
JEL: 
D12
D13
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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