IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfpoli/v130y2025ics0306919224001982.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Meat taxes are inevitable, yet we seem to shy away from them. But why?

Author

Listed:
  • Banerjee, Sanchayan

Abstract

•A meaningful dietary transition requires robust fiscal policies, such as meat and dairy (hereinafter “meat”) taxes.•Meat taxes are optimal. They can be designed in ways that are not regressive.•Meat taxes are not necessarily unpopular. Design of tax is important.•Meat taxes are not particularly bad but made to look so by lobbyists.•Assessing synergies between meat taxes and other behavioural measures is essential for effective policy design.

Suggested Citation

  • Banerjee, Sanchayan, 2025. "Meat taxes are inevitable, yet we seem to shy away from them. But why?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:130:y:2025:i:c:s0306919224001982
    DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102787
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919224001982
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102787?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. Cass R. Sunstein, 2022. "The distributional effects of nudges," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 9-10, January.
    2. Franziska Funke & Linus Mattauch & Inge van den Bijgaart & H. Charles J. Godfray & Cameron Hepburn & David Klenert & Marco Springmann & Nicolas Treich, 2022. "Toward Optimal Meat Pricing: Is It Time to Tax Meat Consumption?," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(2), pages 219-240.
    3. Christina Gravert & Ganga Shreedhar, 2022. "Effective carbon taxes need green nudges," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 12(12), pages 1073-1074, December.
    4. Erhard, Ainslee & Banerjee, Sanchayan & Morren, Meike, 2024. "Driving public support for a meat tax: Fiscal policies and behavioral interventions," Sustainable Food Systems Discussion Papers 344114, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
    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. L. Lades & F. Nova, 2024. "Ethical Considerations When Using Nudges to Reduce Meat Consumption: an Analysis Through the FORGOOD Ethics Framework," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 1-19, March.
    2. Alice Pizzo & Christina Gravert & Jan M. Bauer & Lucia Reisch, 2025. "Carbon Taxes Crowd Out Climate Concern: Experimental Evidence from Sustainable Consumer Choices," CESifo Working Paper Series 11719, CESifo.
    3. Alice Pizzo & Christina Gravert & Jan M. Bauer & Lucia Reisch, 2024. "Carbon Taxes Crowd Out Climate Concern: Experimental Evidence from Sustainable Consumer Choices," CEBI working paper series 24-16, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    4. Paul Fesenfeld, Lukas & Maier, Maiken & Brazzola, Nicoletta & Stolz, Niklas & Sun, Yixian & Kachi, Aya, 2023. "How information, social norms, and experience with novel meat substitutes can create positive political feedback and demand-side policy change," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    5. Karola Bastini & Rudolf Kerschreiter & Maik Lachmann & Matthias Ziegler & Tim Sawert, 2024. "Encouraging Individual Contributions to Net-Zero Organizations: Effects of Behavioral Policy Interventions and Social Norms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 192(3), pages 543-560, July.
    6. Marion Dupoux & Benjamin Ouvrard, 2024. "Harnessing social information to improve public support for Pigouvian taxes," Working Papers 2024-05, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).
    7. Giuseppe Attanasi & Barbara Buljat Raymond & Agnès Festré & Andrea Guido, 2023. "Augmented Reality Technology as a Tool for Promoting Pro-environmental Behavior and Attitudes," GREDEG Working Papers 2023-15, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    8. Charlotte Klatt & Anna Schulze-Tilling, 2024. "Tastes Better than Expected: Post-Intervention Effects of a Vegetarian Month in the Student Canteen," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 315, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    9. Eichner, Thomas & Runkel, Marco, 2025. "Animal welfare, moral consumers and the optimal regulation of animal food production," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    10. Bonnet, Céline & Coinon, Marine, 2024. "Environmental co-benefits of health policies to reduce meat consumption: A narrative review," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    11. Belot, Michèle & James, Jonathan, 2022. "Incentivizing dietary choices among children: Review of experimental evidence," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    12. Pablo Delgado,, 2023. "Exploring the Drivers of Spain's Nutritional Transition: From Meat Shortages to Excess (1958-1990)," Working Papers 0234, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    13. Maxence Gérard & Stéphane De Cara & Guy Meunier, 2025. "Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from the cattle sector: Land‐use regulation as an alternative to emissions pricing," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 107(1), pages 312-345, January.
    14. Paul M. Lohmann & Elisabeth Gsottbauer & Christina Gravert & Lucia A. Reisch, 2025. "Nudging, Fast and Slow: Experimental Evidence from Food Choices Under Time Pressure," CESifo Working Paper Series 11718, CESifo.
    15. Espinosa, Romain & Treich, Nicolas, 2024. "Animal welfare as a public good," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    16. Lohmann, Paul M & Gsottbauer, Elisabeth & Farrington, James & Human, Steve & Reisch, Lucia A, 2024. "Choice architecture promotes sustainable choices in online food-delivery apps," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 125835, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Dannenberg, Astrid & Klatt, Charlotte & Weingärtner, Eva, 2024. "The effects of social norms and observability on food choice," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    18. Page, Jessica & Zhou, Hong & Pan, Haozhi & Zhou, Chang & Pei, Pei & Kalantari, Zahra, 2024. "(Non-)terrestrial and (Non-)local pathways of behavioral policy diffusion in European cities’ climate action plans: Contextual, cultural, and leadership framing," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    19. Shilong Xi & Xiaohui Wang & Kejun Lin, 2025. "The Impact of Carbon Emissions Trading Pilot Policies on High-Quality Agricultural Development: An Empirical Assessment Using Double Machine Learning," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-28, February.
    20. Petersen, Thies & Denker, Tom & Koppenberg, Maximilian & Hirsch, Stefan, 2024. "Meat Substitute Consumption and Political Attitudes – Testing the Left-Right and Environmental Concerns Frameworks," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343692, 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:130:y:2025:i:c:s0306919224001982. 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.