Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/287174 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Citation: 
[Journal:] International Tax and Public Finance [ISSN:] 1573-6970 [Volume:] 29 [Issue:] 5 [Publisher:] Springer US [Place:] New York, NY [Year:] 2021 [Pages:] 1294-1320
Publisher: 
Springer US, New York, NY
Abstract: 
If an individual's health costs are U-shaped in weight with a minimum at some healthy level and if the individual has both self-control problems and rational motives for over- or underweight, the optimal paternalistic tax on calorie intake mitigates the individual's weight problem (intensive margin), but does not induce the individual to choose healthy weight (extensive margin). Implementing healthy weight by a calorie tax is not only inferior to paternalistic taxation, but may even be worse than not taxing the individual at all. With heterogeneous individuals, the optimal uniform paternalistic tax may have the negative side effect of reducing calorie intake of the under- and normal weights. We confirm these theoretical insights by an empirical calibration to US adults.
Subjects: 
Sin tax
Paternalism
Obesity
Extensive versus intensive margin
JEL: 
D03
D11
H21
I18
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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