Taxing Sin Goods and Subsidizing Health Care

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Taxing Sin Goods and Subsidizing Health Care

Author Info

Helmuth Cremer ()
Philippe de Donder ()
Darío Maldonado ()
Pierre Pestieau ()

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Abstract

We consider a two-period model. In the first period, individuals consume two goods: one is sinful and the other is not. The sin good brings pleasure but has a detrimental effect on second period health and individuals tend to underestimate this effect. In the second period, individuals can devote part of their saving to improve their health status and thus compensate for the damage caused by their sinful consumption. We consider two alternative specifications concerning this second period health care decision: either individuals acknowledge that they have made a mistake in the first period out of myopia or ignorance, or they persist in ignoring the detrimental effect of their sinful consumption. We study the optimal linear taxes on sin good consumption, saving and health care expenditures for a paternalistic social planner. We compare those taxes in the two specifications. We show under which circumstances the first best outcome can be decentralized and we study the second best taxes when saving is unobservable.

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Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number CESifo Working Paper No. 2297.

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Date of creation: 2008
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Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2297

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Paper
- Cremer, Helmuth & De Donder, Philippe & Maldonado, Darío & Pestieau, Pierre, 2008. "Taxing Sin Goods and Subsidizing Health Care," CEPR Discussion Papers 6777, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
- CREMER, Helmuth & DE DONDER, Philippe & MALDONADO, Dario & PESTIEAU, Pierre, 2008. "Taxing sin goods and subsidizing health care," CORE Discussion Papers 2008031, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE). [Downloadable!]

Find related papers by JEL classification:
H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

Ted O'Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2003. "Studying Optimal Paternalism, Illustrated by a Model of Sin Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 186-191, May. [Downloadable!]
Jonathan Gruber & Botond Koszegi, 2000. "Is Addiction "Rational"? Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 7507, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Besley, Timothy, 1988. "A simple model for merit good arguments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 371-383, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
O'Donoghue, Ted & Rabin, Matthew, 2006. "Optimal sin taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 1825-1849, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)

Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

Marie-Louise Leroux, 2009. "Endogenous Differential Mortality, Non-Contractible Effort and Non Linear Taxation," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]

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This page was last updated on 2009-12-14.

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