Do alcohol taxes in Europe and the US rightly correct for externalities?

Evan Herrnstadt, Ian Parry and Juha Siikamäki

International Tax and Public Finance, 2015, vol. 22, issue 1, 73-101

Abstract: We develop an analytical framework for assessing corrective taxes and other policies to reduce alcohol-related externalities and apply it to the US, UK, Sweden, and Finland. The corrective tax estimates for the European countries fall short of current taxes and vice versa for the US (where drunk-driving externalities are larger and current taxes smaller). Alcohol sales restrictions are more difficult to justify on efficiency grounds as (unlike taxes) they involve large, first-order deadweight losses. For all countries, the efficiency case for stiffer drunk driver fines seems strong (though the same does not necessarily apply to non-pecuniary penalties). Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Keywords: Alcohol tax; Drunk-driver penalty; Sales restrictions; External costs; Welfare effects; I18; H21; H23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:22:y:2015:i:1:p:73-101

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DOI: 10.1007/s10797-013-9294-8

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