Taxes and gender equality: The incidence of the ‘tampon tax’

Thiess Buettner, Frank Hechtner and Boryana Madzharova

European Economic Review, 2025, vol. 177, issue C

Abstract: This paper uses a permanent reduction of the “tampon tax” in Germany to study the price and unit-sales effects of the tax. Exploiting an extensive data set on the sales and scanner prices of feminine hygiene products in Germany and Italy, our results show that the incidence of tampon taxes is fully on consumers, while demand for these products is price-inelastic. We do not find cross-price effects for a closely related product group, which remained taxed at the standard tax rate. We conclude that reducing taxes on feminine hygiene products could be an effective measure to address “period poverty”.

Keywords: Tax incidence; Pass-through; Gender equality; Feminine hygiene products; Period poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H22 H23 I38 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:177:y:2025:i:c:s0014292125001047

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105054

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