Soft drink taxes have been implemented in 50 jurisdictions (as of August 2019). We review the evidence on their effects, summarising 27 studies of taxes in 11 jurisdictions.
We analyse a simple Hotelling model in which retailers and manufacturers endogenously advertise their respective brands; we account for the impact of advertising on retailer–manufacturer bargaining and downstream competition. The model predicts that retailers advertise their store brands less when advertising is more rivalrous.
The government has launched a consultation on whether to ban the advertising of food and drink high in fat, salt or sugar on television before the 9pm watershed. But the impact of such restrictions would depend on how firms change their advertising strategies following the ban.
Alcohol consumption is associated with costs to society from anti-social behaviour, crime and public costs of policing and health care. These externalities are non-linear in alcohol consumption, with a small number of heavy drinkers creating the majority of the costs. Governments attempt to reduce problematic alcohol consumption through restricting availability and with policies that aim to increase prices. In this paper we study the design of alcohol taxes.
Since 2007 it has not been permitted to advertise food and drink that is high in fat, salt or sugar during children's television programmes. Evidence from Ofcom suggests that in 2016 children spent 64% of their viewing time watching programmes outside children’s programming. Recent discussion around the possibility of a second wave of the Government’s childhood obesity strategy has included calls from health campaigners and leaders of all the main opposition parties to extend current restrictions on when food and drink products that are high in fat, salt or sugar can be advertised to cover all pre-watershed advertising.
