BACKGROUND The distribution of cigarette prices has rarely been studied and compared under different tax structures. Descriptive evidence on price distributions by countries can shed light on opportunities for tax avoidance and brand switching under different tobacco tax structures, which could impact the effectiveness of increased taxation in reducing smoking. OBJECTIVE This paper aims to de...

BACKGROUND In Bangladesh, the average excise tax on cigarettes accounted for just 38% of the average retail price of cigarettes in 2009, and 45% in 2010. Both these rates are well below the WHO recommended share of 70% of the retail price at a minimum. There is thus ample room for raising taxes on cigarettes in Bangladesh. The objective of the present work was therefore to estimate the price el...

OBJECTIVE We examine the potential role for taxation in the tobacco endgame in New Zealand, where the goal is to become 'smokefree' (less than 5% smoking prevalence) by 2025. DESIGN Modelling study using a dynamic population model. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS New Zealand, Māori and non-Māori men and women. INTERVENTIONS Annual increases in tobacco excise tax of 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% (with 10%...

Most people accept that structural and labour market reforms are needed in Europe. However few have been undertaken. The usual conjecture is that reforms are costly in economic performance and costly to finance. Blanchard and Giavazzi (2003) and Spector (2004) develop a general equilibrium model with imperfect competition to show the impact of labour or product market deregulation. We extend th...

Due to the use of distortionary taxation, many believe that real-world economies should attain a lower level of public expenditures than one might suspect from the analysis of arti cial models where lump-sum taxes are assumed to be available. The paper examines this popular hypothesis by means of the two-type self-selection model of income taxation. I provide su cient conditions for both a lowe...

The net effects of switching from consumption taxation to inflation taxation on resource allocation and welfare crucially depend on production externalities. With elastic labor supply, raising inflation taxation decreases leisure, but increases the levels of real consumption, capital, and output. Moreover, this tax switch has two opposing effects on the level of real money balances: A positive ...

The issue addressed in this paper is the optimal taxation of incomes earned tn the home economy, and of incomes earned abroad, when people can migrate. As a preliminary, the optimal taxation of home incomes when there is migration and no taxation of foreign incomes, is discussed. Then in a more general setting, we deal with optimal taxation of different kinds of labour when another kind of labo...

BACKGROUND Diabetes is a costly and debilitating disease. The aim of the study is to quantify the individual and national costs of diabetes resulting from people retiring early because of this disease, including lost income; lost income taxation, increased government welfare payments; and reductions in GDP. METHODS A purpose-built microsimulation model, Health&WealthMOD2030, was used to estim...