Soda Taxes.

• Author: Van Doren, Peter
• Position: Working Papers: A SUMMARY OF RECENT PAPERS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST TO REGULATION'S READERS.

* "The Impact of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes on Purchases: Evidence from Four City-Level Taxes in the U.S.," by John Cawley, David Frisvold, and David Jones. October 2019. NBER #26393.

Regulation has published both articles ("Would Soda Taxes Really Yield Health Benefits?" Fall 2010; "Slim Odds," Spring 2011) and Working Paper reviews (Winter 2017-2018, Spring 2019) on the effects of soda consumption on obesity and the effects of soda taxes on reducing soda consumption and body weight. The joint conclusion is that supportive evidence for the importance of soda consumption in weight gain is weak or non-existent and the taxation of beverages has not reduced soda consumption because of substitution of lower- for higher-priced soda or purchases outside the local jurisdictions that have imposed soda taxes.

This study differs in several ways from those previously discussed. First, it examines the effect of soda taxes in the four largest cities to enact them (Philadelphia, Oakland, San Francisco, and Seattle). Second, it examines the universe of retail purchases by a panel of households with children six months before and after enactment of the tax rather than the more commonly used data for soda sales at national chain stores. And third, it uses two control groups: a demographically matched national comparison group, as well as the households in each metropolitan area outside of each of the four cities that imposed the taxes.

Despite those differences, this study's results mirror those of the previous studies. Across the four cities, an increase in...