Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/148007 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Publisher: 
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel und Hamburg
Abstract: 
Rising prevalence of obesity among adults and children is a major policy issue in many countries. Two widely discussed instruments to address obesity are a tax on unhealthy foods (fat tax) and a subsidy on healthy foods (thin subsidy). We compare these two policies to a sales tax on all food products, taking into account the different opportunity costs in terms of time for healthy and unhealthy meals. We show that the policy which reduces obesity under the most general conditions is the sales tax without the fat tax and the thin subsidy. Moreover, this policy is the only one which unambiguously stimulates healthy consumption.
Subjects: 
fat tax
thin subsidy
sales tax
obesity
JEL: 
D11
I12
I18
H31
H51
Document Type: 
Preprint

Files in This Item:
File
Size
362.99 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.