IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2312.11481.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Nudging Nutrition: Lessons from the Danish "Fat Tax"

Author

Listed:
  • Christian M{o}ller Dahl
  • Nadja van 't Hoff
  • Giovanni Mellace
  • Sinne Smed

Abstract

In October 2011, Denmark introduced the world's first and, to date, only tax targeting saturated fat. However, this tax was subsequently abolished in January 2013. Leveraging exogenous variation from untaxed Northern-German consumers, we employ a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the causal effects of both the implementation and repeal of the tax on consumption and expenditure behavior across eight product categories targeted by the tax. Our findings reveal significant heterogeneity in the tax's impact across these products. During the taxed period, there was a notable decline in consumption of bacon, liver sausage, salami, and cheese, particularly among low-income households. In contrast, expenditure on butter, cream, margarine, and sour cream increased as prices rose. Interestingly, we do not observe any difference in expenditure increases between high and low-income households, suggesting that the latter were disproportionately affected by the tax. After the repeal of the tax, we do not observe any significant decline in consumption. On the contrary, there was an overall increase in consumption for certain products, prompting concerns about unintended consequences resulting from the brief implementation of the tax.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian M{o}ller Dahl & Nadja van 't Hoff & Giovanni Mellace & Sinne Smed, 2023. "Nudging Nutrition: Lessons from the Danish "Fat Tax"," Papers 2312.11481, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2312.11481
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.11481
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jayson L. Lusk & Christiane Schroeter, 2012. "When Do Fat Taxes Increase Consumer Welfare?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(11), pages 1367-1374, November.
    2. Olivier Allais & Patrice Bertail & Véronique Nichèle, 2010. "The Effects of a Fat Tax on French Households' Purchases: A Nutritional Approach," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(1), pages 228-245.
    3. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    4. Allais, Olivier & Bertail, Patrice & Nichele, Veronique, 2010. "The weak effects of a “fat tax” on French households’ food purchases: A nutritional approach," INRAE Sciences Sociales, Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (INRAE), Departement Sciences Sociales, Agriculture et Alimentation, Espace et Environnement (SAE2), vol. 2010, pages 1-5, October.
    5. Nordström, Jonas & Thunström, Linda, 2009. "The impact of tax reforms designed to encourage healthier grain consumption," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 622-634, May.
    6. Yaniv, Gideon & Rosin, Odelia & Tobol, Yossef, 2009. "Junk-food, home cooking, physical activity and obesity: The effect of the fat tax and the thin subsidy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 823-830, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Härkänen, Tommi & Kotakorpi, Kaisa & Pietinen, Pirjo & Pirttilä, Jukka & Reinivuo, Heli & Suoniemi, Ilpo, 2014. "The welfare effects of health-based food tax policy," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(P1), pages 196-206.
    2. Davide Dragone & Francesco Manaresi & Luca Savorelli, 2016. "Obesity and Smoking: can we Kill Two Birds with one Tax?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(11), pages 1464-1482, November.
    3. Irz, Xavier & Leroy, Pascal & Réquillart, Vincent & Soler, Louis-Georges, 2015. "Economic assessment of nutritional recommendations," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 188-210.
    4. Zhen Miao & John C. Beghin & Helen H. Jensen, 2013. "Accounting For Product Substitution In The Analysis Of Food Taxes Targeting Obesity," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(11), pages 1318-1343, November.
    5. Luis Rodrigo Arnabal, 2021. "Optimal design of sin taxes in the presence of nontaxable sin goods," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(7), pages 1580-1599, July.
    6. Bonnet, Céline & Réquillart, Vincent, 2023. "The effects of taxation on the individual consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    7. Jensen, Henning Tarp & Keogh-Brown, Marcus R. & Shankar, Bhavani & Aekplakorn, Wichai & Basu, Sanjay & Cuevas, Soledad & Dangour, Alan D. & Gheewala, Shabbir H. & Green, Rosemary & Joy, Edward J.M. & , 2019. "Palm oil and dietary change: Application of an integrated macroeconomic, environmental, demographic, and health modelling framework for Thailand," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 92-103.
    8. Cremer, Helmuth & Goulão, Catarina & Roeder, Kerstin, 2016. "Earmarking and the political support of fat taxes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 258-267.
    9. Cosnard, Lionel & Laborde, David, 2019. "Taxing Sugar and Sugary Products to Reduce Obesity: A CGE Assessment of Several Tax Policies," Conference papers 333067, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    10. Fabrice Etilé & Sebastien Lecocq & Christine Boizot-Szantai, 2018. "The Incidence of Soft-Drink Taxes on Consumer Prices and Welfare: Evidence from the French " Soda Tax"," PSE Working Papers halshs-01808198, HAL.
    11. Anurag Sharma & Katharina Hauck & Bruce Hollingsworth & Luigi Siciliani, 2014. "The Effects Of Taxing Sugar‐Sweetened Beverages Across Different Income Groups," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(9), pages 1159-1184, September.
    12. Xiang, Di & Zhan, Lue & Bordignon, Massimo, 2020. "A reconsideration of the sugar sweetened beverage tax in a household production model," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    13. Massimo Bordignon & Di Xiang & Lue Zhan, 2018. "Predicting the Effects of a Sugar Sweetened Beverage Tax in a Household Production Model," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def075, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    14. Requillart, V. & Irz, X. & Jensen, J. & Leroy, P. & Soler, L.-G., 2018. "Promoting Climate-Friendly Diets: What Should We Tell Consumers in Demark, Finland and France?," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277057, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    15. Dogbe, Wisdom & Gil, Jose M., 2020. "Internalizing the public cost of obesity in Spain: Distributional effects on nutrient intake," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1352-1371.
    16. Anurag Sharma & Fabrice Etilé & Kompal Sinha, 2016. "The Effect of Introducing a Minimum Price on the Distribution of Alcohol Purchase: A Counterfactual Analysis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(9), pages 1182-1200, September.
    17. Jensen, Jørgen Dejgård & Smed, Sinne, 2013. "The Danish tax on saturated fat – Short run effects on consumption, substitution patterns and consumer prices of fats," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 18-31.
    18. Alberto Pench, 2020. "Time Allocation and Snacks and Sugar Sweetened Beverages Taxation," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 6(3), pages 469-492, November.
    19. Ryota Nakamura & Marc Suhrcke & Daniel John Zizzo, 2017. "A triple test for behavioral economics models and public health policy," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(4), pages 513-533, December.
    20. Jing Li & Edward C. Jaenicke & Tobenna D. Anekwe & Alessandro Bonanno, 2018. "Demand for ready‐to‐eat cereals with household‐level censored purchase data and nutrition label information: A distance metric approach," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(4), pages 687-713, October.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2312.11481. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.