BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Carolina Population Center - ECPv6.3.4//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:Carolina Population Center X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.cpc.unc.edu X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Carolina Population Center REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20180311T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20181104T060000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181102T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181102T130000 DTSTAMP:20240328T133803 CREATED:20200102T153542Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200102T153542Z UID:35782-1541160000-1541163600@www.cpc.unc.edu SUMMARY:Should We Tax Soda? An Overview of Theory and Evidence DESCRIPTION:On Friday\, November 2nd\, Hunt Allcott\, PhD\, will present Should We Tax Soda? An Overview of Theory and Evidence as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series. Allcott is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research\, an Associate Professor of Economics at New York University\, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research\, and a Co-Editor of the Journal of Public Economics. He is a Scientific Director of ideas42\, a think tank that applies insights from psychology and economics to business and policy design problems\, an Affiliate of Poverty Action Lab\, a network of researchers who use randomized evaluations to answer critical policy questions in the fight against poverty\, and a Faculty Affiliate of E2e\, a group of economists\, engineers\, and behavioral scientists focused on evaluating and improving energy efficiency policy. He was also a Contributing Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report.\nProfessor Allcott is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellows Shu Wen Ng and Lindsey Smith Taillie. Ng is an Associate Professor and Taillie is a Research Assistant Professor\, both in the Department of Nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill. \nPRESENTATION ABSTRACT \nTaxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are growing in popularity and have generated an active public debate. Are they a good idea? If so\, how high should they be? Are such taxes regressive? Americans and some others around the world consume a remarkable amount of SSBs\, and the evidence suggests that this generates significant health costs. Building on recent work by Allcott\, Lockwood\, and Taubinsky (2018) and others\, we review the basic economic principles for an optimal sin tax on SSBs. The optimal tax depends on (1) externalities: uninternalized costs to the health system from SSB consumption; (2) internalities: costs consumers impose on themselves by overconsuming sweetened beverages due to poor nutrition knowledge or lack of self-control; and (3) regressivity: how much the financial burden and the internality benefits from the tax fall on the poor. We then summarize the empirical evidence on the key parameters that determine how large the tax should be\, which suggests that SSB taxes can be welfare enhancing. We end with seven concrete suggestions for policymakers considering an SSB tax. \nCurriculum Vita (PDF) \n Instructors: To arrange for class attendance\, contact Kate Allison (akalliso@email.unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar \n Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance. \nThis seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series. URL:https://www.cpc.unc.edu/event/should-we-tax-soda-an-overview-of-theory-and-evidence/ CATEGORIES:2018-19 Interdisciplinary Research Seminars END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR