 Fat Taxes and Thin Subsidies as Obesity PolicyJulian Alston and
Abigail M. Okrent
Chapter 9 in The Effects of Farm and Food Policy on Obesity in the United States, 2017, pp 237-283 from Palgrave Macmillan Abstract: Abstract Many obesity policy proponents have speculated about taxing foods with high fat or high sugar content or subsidizing healthier foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, and governments have tried some of these possibilities. While much remains unresolved, the available evidence does not favor subsidies on fresh fruit and vegetables or taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) as obesity policy. Taxes on specific nutrients are generally found to be more effective in reducing calorie consumption and body weight as well as economically more efficient. However, any food tax will be regressive and could have other undesirable unintended consequences, and it is not clear that it would be politically feasible to set any such tax at a high enough rate to have a worthwhile effect on reducing obesity. Keywords: SSB taxes; Fat taxes; Fruit and vegetable subsidies; Regressive tax; Political feasibility (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:psachp:978-1-137-47831-3_9 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-47831-3_9 Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Palgrave Studies in Agricultural Economics and Food Policy from Palgrave Macmillan |
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