IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfpoli/v74y2018icp147-153.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental food taxes and inequalities: Simulation of a meat tax in Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Säll, Sarah

Abstract

This paper investigates the distributional effect of an environmental tax on meat in Sweden, if such a tax was to be introduced. Welfare effects are measured as Compensation Variation (CV) for multiple price changes where Hicksian cross price elasticities, household expenditures and price changes are included in the calculations. Results show that taxes on meat are almost neutral over households when expenditures on meat are used as welfare indicators, and regressive if income is used. This can be explained by the households’ similar shares of total expenditures on meat. The households with the smallest income levels need to be compensated with 904 SEK per person and year (equivalent to Euro 86.6 per year in the year 2009 exchange rate) to feel that utility is not lowered if taxes on meat are introduced, and the households with the highest income levels need to be compensated with 1141 SEK (Euro 109.3) per person and year. For the year 2009 these compensations correspond to 0.74% and 0.78% of total expenditures for the low and high income group, respectively. When instead comparing the compensation with income levels, the effects correspond to 0.99% for the households with the smallest income levels and to 0.51% for the households with the largest income.

Suggested Citation

  • Säll, Sarah, 2018. "Environmental food taxes and inequalities: Simulation of a meat tax in Sweden," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 147-153.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:74:y:2018:i:c:p:147-153
    DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2017.12.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919217304566
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.foodpol.2017.12.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Säll, Sarah & Gren, Ing-Marie, 2015. "Effects of an environmental tax on meat and dairy consumption in Sweden," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 41-53.
    2. James M. Poterba, 1991. "Is the Gasoline Tax Regressive?," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 5, pages 145-164, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Gelan, Ayele Ulfata, 2007. "Does food aid have disincentive effects on local production? A general equilibrium perspective on food aid in Ethiopia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 436-458, August.
    4. Arndt, Channing & Tarp, Finn, 2001. "Who gets the goods? A general equilibrium perspective on food aid in Mozambique," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 107-119, April.
    5. Smed, Sinne & Jensen, Jorgen D. & Denver, Sigrid, 2007. "Socio-economic characteristics and the effect of taxation as a health policy instrument," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(5-6), pages 624-639.
    6. Katri Kosonen, 2012. "Regressivity of environmental taxation: myth or reality?," Taxation Papers 32, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    7. Hertel, Thomas, 1997. "Global Trade Analysis: Modeling and applications," GTAP Books, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, number 7685, December.
    8. Deaton,Angus & Muellbauer,John, 1980. "Economics and Consumer Behavior," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521296762, September.
    9. Huang, Kuo S., 1993. "Measuring the Effects of U.S. Meat Trade on Consumers' Welfare," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(1), pages 217-227, July.
    10. Stefan Wirsenius & Fredrik Hedenus & Kristina Mohlin, 2011. "Greenhouse gas taxes on animal food products: rationale, tax scheme and climate mitigation effects," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 108(1), pages 159-184, September.
    11. Laura Cornelsen & Rosemary Green & Rachel Turner & Alan D. Dangour & Bhavani Shankar & Mario Mazzocchi & Richard D. Smith, 2015. "What Happens to Patterns of Food Consumption when Food Prices Change? Evidence from A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis of Food Price Elasticities Globally," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(12), pages 1548-1559, December.
    12. Laborde, David & Martin, Will & Van Der Mensbrugghe, Dominique, 2012. "Implications of the Doha market access proposals for developing countries," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 1-25, January.
    13. Edjabou, Louise Dyhr & Smed, Sinne, 2013. "The effect of using consumption taxes on foods to promote climate friendly diets – The case of Denmark," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 84-96.
    14. Azzam, Azzeddine M. & Rettab, Belaid, 2012. "A welfare measure of consumer vulnerability to rising prices of food imports in the UAE," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 554-560.
    15. Deaton, Angus S & Muellbauer, John, 1980. "An Almost Ideal Demand System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 312-326, June.
    16. Hausman, Jerry A, 1981. "Exact Consumer's Surplus and Deadweight Loss," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 662-676, September.
    17. Chouinard Hayley H & Davis David E & LaFrance Jeffrey T & Perloff Jeffrey M, 2007. "Fat Taxes: Big Money for Small Change," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-30, 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. Säll, Sarah, 2015. "Distributional effects of environmental meat taxes in Sweden- Can the poor still eat meat?," Working Paper Series 2015:3, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department Economics.
    2. Gren, Ing-Marie & Höglind, Lisa & Jansson, Torbjörn, 2021. "Refunding of a climate tax on food consumption in Sweden," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    3. Roosen, Jutta & Staudigel, Matthias & Rahbauer, Sebastian, 2022. "Demand elasticities for fresh meat and welfare effects of meat taxes in Germany," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    4. Huang, Wei, 2022. "Demand for plant-based milk and effects of a carbon tax on fresh milk consumption in Sweden," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 518-529.
    5. Bonnet, Céline & Bouamra-Mechemache, Zohra & Corre, Tifenn, 2018. "An Environmental Tax Towards More Sustainable Food: Empirical Evidence of the Consumption of Animal Products in France," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 48-61.
    6. Caillavet, France & Fadhuile, Adélaïde & Nichèle, Véronique, 2019. "Assessing the distributional effects of carbon taxes on food: Inequalities and nutritional insights in France," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 20-31.
    7. Dogbe, W. & Gil, J.M., 2018. "Effects of a modified Danish fat tax on food consumption and nutrients intake in Spain," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277237, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Säll, Sarah & Gren, Ing-Marie, 2015. "Effects of an environmental tax on meat and dairy consumption in Sweden," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 41-53.
    9. Mora Rodriguez, Jhon James, 2013. "Introduccion a la teoría del consumidor [Introduction to Consumer Theory]," MPRA Paper 48129, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Jul 2013.
    10. Linh, Pham Thi Ngoc & Burton, Michael & Vanzetti, David, 2008. "The welfare of small livestock producers in Vietnam under trade liberalisation - integration of trade and household models," Conference papers 331787, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    11. Silvia Tiezzi & Stefano F. Verde, 2017. "The signaling effect of gasoline taxes and its distributional implications," RSCAS Working Papers 2017/06, European University Institute.
    12. Jasmin Wehner & Xiaohua Yu, 2023. "Carbon tax on milk products and the exact consumer welfare measure in emerging economies," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(S1), pages 1595-1623, December.
    13. Dumagan, Jesus C. & Mount, Timothy D., 1997. "Approximating compensated income from ordinary demand functions1," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 191-201, August.
    14. Huang, Kuo S. & Blayney, Donald P., 2003. "How Dairy Price Changes Influence The Consumers' Welfare," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22031, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    15. Schmidt, Alena & Necpalova, Magdalena & Mack, Gabriele & Möhring, Anke & Six, Johan, 2021. "A food tax only minimally reduces the N surplus of Swiss agriculture," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    16. Caillavet, France & Fadhuile, Adelaide & Nichèle, Véronique, 2016. "Hunger for meat: can animal protein-based taxation reverse the trend?," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235982, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Dogbe, Wisdom & Gil, José M., 2018. "Effectiveness of a carbon tax to promote a climate-friendly food consumption," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 235-246.
    18. Ole Boysen, 2019. "When does specification or aggregation across consumers matter for economic impact analysis models? An investigation into demand systems," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 137-172, January.
    19. Silvia Tiezzi & Stefano F. Verde, 2019. "The signaling effect of gasoline taxes and its distributional implications," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(2), pages 145-169, June.
    20. Caillavet, France & Fadhuile, Adelaide & Nichèle, Véronique, 2018. "How does carbon pricing matter for a climate-friendly food consumption?," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 273860, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    More about this item

    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:eee:jfpoli:v:74:y:2018:i:c:p:147-153. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpol .

    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.