IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cer/papers/wp726.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Exploring Border Effects: Sensitivity of Cigarette Consumption to Excise Tax

Author

Listed:
  • Aisha Baisalova

Abstract

Border effects can have a considerable influence on the effectiveness of excise tax policy measures. The opportunity to buy taxable goods in the nearest lower-tax state redistributes the tax burden among consumers and determines the treatment intensity of how an increase in the tax rate may affect consumption decision. Using Nielsen Consumer Panel data, we estimate the bias arising from border effects and investigate how sensitivity to cigarette excise tax and the size of bias vary for different demographic groups. We find that border effects create a bias in the estimate of consumption sensitivity to an increase in the excise tax rate, which is present for all demographic groups. Tax sensitivity increases with the average distance to the lower tax state border, implying that border residence decreases the impact of excise tax policy interventions on consumer choice.

Suggested Citation

  • Aisha Baisalova, 2022. "Exploring Border Effects: Sensitivity of Cigarette Consumption to Excise Tax," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp726, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    • Handle: RePEc:cer:papers:wp726
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cerge-ei.cz/pdf/wp/Wp726.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philip DeCicca & Donald Kenkel & Feng Liu, 2013. "Who Pays Cigarette Taxes? The Impact of Consumer Price Search," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 516-529, May.
    2. Gawain Heckley & Johan Jarl & Ulf-G Gerdtham, 2017. "Frequency and intensity of alcohol consumption: new evidence from Sweden," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 18(4), pages 495-517, May.
    3. Lovenheim, Michael F., 2008. "How Far to the Border?: The Extent and Impact of Cross-Border Casual Cigarette Smuggling," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 61(1), pages 7-33, March.
    4. Richard Cebula & Maggie Foley & Robert Houmes, 2014. "Empirical analysis of the impact of cigarette excise taxes on cigarette consumption: estimates from recent state-level data," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 38(1), pages 164-180, January.
    5. Hanson, Andrew & Sullivan, Ryan, 2009. "The Incidence of Tobacco Taxation: Evidence From Geographic Micro-Level Data," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 62(4), pages 677-698, December.
    6. Lewit, Eugene M. & Coate, Douglas, 1982. "The potential for using excise taxes to reduce smoking," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 121-145, August.
    7. Richard J. Cebula & Fiorentina Angjellari-Dajci & Russell Kashian, 2016. "Are there interregional differences in the response of cigarette smoking to state cigarette excise taxes in the USA? Exploratory analysis," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(8), pages 1494-1507, June.
    8. M.C. Farrelly & C.T. Nimsch & A. Hyland & M. Cummings, 2004. "The effects of higher cigarette prices on tar and nicotine consumption in a cohort of adult smokers," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 49-58, January.
    9. Lesley Chiou & Erich Muehlegger, 2014. "Consumer Response to Cigarette Excise Tax Changes," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 67(3), pages 621-650, September.
    10. William N. Evans & Matthew C. Farrelly, 1998. "The Compensating Behavior of Smokers: Taxes, Tar, and Nicotine," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(3), pages 578-595, Autumn.
    11. Matthew Harding & Ephraim Leibtag & Michael F. Lovenheim, 2012. "The Heterogeneous Geographic and Socioeconomic Incidence of Cigarette Taxes: Evidence from Nielsen Homescan Data," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 169-198, November.
    12. Justin S. White & Hana Ross, 2015. "Smokers' Strategic Responses to Sin Taxes: Evidence from Panel Data in Thailand," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 127-141, February.
    13. Cotti, Chad & Nesson, Erik & Tefft, Nathan, 2018. "The relationship between cigarettes and electronic cigarettes: Evidence from household panel data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 205-219.
    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. Kyle Rozema & Nicolas Ziebarth, 2015. "Behavioral Responses to Taxation: Cigarette Taxes and Food Stamp Take-Up," Working Papers 150015, Canadian Centre for Health Economics.
    2. Hyunchul Kim & Dongwon Lee, 2021. "Racial demographics and cigarette tax shifting: evidence from scanner data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 1011-1037, August.
    3. Cotti, Chad & Courtemanche, Charles & Maclean, Joanna Catherine & Nesson, Erik & Pesko, Michael F. & Tefft, Nathan W., 2022. "The effects of e-cigarette taxes on e-cigarette prices and tobacco product sales: Evidence from retail panel data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    4. Erik Nesson, 2017. "Heterogeneity in Smokers' Responses to Tobacco Control Policies," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(2), pages 206-225, February.
    5. Lesley Chiou & Erich Muehlegger, 2014. "Consumer Response to Cigarette Excise Tax Changes," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 67(3), pages 621-650, September.
    6. DeCicca, Philip & Kenkel, Donald & Liu, Feng, 2013. "Excise tax avoidance: The case of state cigarette taxes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1130-1141.
    7. Don Fullerton & Erich Muehlegger, 2017. "Who Bears the Economic Costs of Environmental Regulations?," NBER Working Papers 23677, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Nicoletta Berardi & Patrick Sevestre & Marine Tépaut & Alexandre Vigneron, 2016. "The impact of a ‘soda tax’ on prices: evidence from French micro data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(41), pages 3976-3994, September.
    9. Bishop, James, 2015. "Interacting effects of state cigarette taxes on smoking participation," MPRA Paper 66609, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Johanna Catherine MacLean & Asia Sikora Kessler & Donald S. Kenkel, 2016. "Cigarette Taxes and Older Adult Smoking: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 424-438, April.
    11. Kevin Callison & Robert Kaestner, 2014. "Do Higher Tobacco Taxes Reduce Adult Smoking? New Evidence Of The Effect Of Recent Cigarette Tax Increases On Adult Smoking," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 155-172, January.
    12. Bryan Bollinger & Steven E. Sexton, 2023. "Local excise taxes, sticky prices, and spillovers: evidence from Berkeley’s soda tax," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 281-331, June.
    13. Muhammad Salar Khan & Paul N. Thompson & Victor J. Tremblay, 2020. "Marijuana tax incidence, stockpiling, and cross-border substitution," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(1), pages 103-127, February.
    14. Javier Espinosa & William N. Evans, 2013. "Excise Taxes, Tax Incidence, and the Flight to Quality," Public Finance Review, , vol. 41(2), pages 147-176, March.
    15. Philip DeCicca & Donald Kenkel & Feng Liu, 2015. "Reservation Prices: An Economic Analysis of Cigarette Purchases on Indian Reservations," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 68(1), pages 93-118, March.
    16. Paula Carvalho Pereda & Carolina Policarpo Garcia, 2021. "Price impact of taxes on sugary drinks in Brazil," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2021_06, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    17. Panayiota Lyssiotou & Elena Savva, 2021. "Who pays taxes on basic foodstuffs? Evidence from broadening the VAT base," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(1), pages 212-247, February.
    18. Leah K. Lakdawala & David Simon, 2016. "The Intergenerational Consequences of Tobacco Policy," Working papers 2016-27, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    19. James M. Bishop, 2018. "Does Cigarette Smuggling Prop Up Smoking Rates?," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 80-104, Winter.
    20. Erik Nesson, 2012. "The Distributional Effects of Tobacco Control Policies On Adult Smoking Behavior," Working Papers 201207, Ball State University, Department of Economics, revised Jun 2012.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    excise taxation; cigarettes; cross-state purchasing; tax avoidance; border effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • L66 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Food; Beverages; Cosmetics; Tobacco

    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:cer:papers:wp726. 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: Lucie Vasiljevova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eiacacz.html .

    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.