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Are taxes good for your health?

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  • Paddy Carter
  • Alex Cobham

Abstract

The global framework for financing development, adopted in 2015, places great emphasis on mobilizing domestic resources to finance the Sustainable Development Goals, which include universal healthcare. In a recent paper Reeves et al. (2015) attribute progress towards universal healthcare to higher levels of taxation, but report a negative association between taxes on goods and services (indirect taxes) and health outcomes, which they hypothesise arises from the impact such taxes have on the real incomes of the poor.

Suggested Citation

  • Paddy Carter & Alex Cobham, 2016. "Are taxes good for your health?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-171, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2016-171
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    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2016-171.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Go, Eugenia & Hill, Sam & Jaber, Maria Hanna & Jinjarak, Yothin & Park, Donghyun & Ragos, Anton, 2022. "Developing Asia’s Fiscal Landscape and Challenges," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 665, Asian Development Bank.
    3. Faiz Ur Rehman & Muhammad Nasir, 2018. "In the Same Boat, but not Equals: The Heterogeneous Effects of Indirect Taxation on Child Health in Punjab-Pakistan," PIDE-Working Papers 2018:158, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    4. Rehman Faiz Ur & Nasir Muhammad, 2020. "In the Same Boat, but not Equals: The Heterogeneous Effects of Indirect Taxation on Child Health in Punjab-Pakistan," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-26, December.
    5. Stephen Hall & Janine Illian & Innocent Makuta & Kyle McNabb & Stuart Murray & Bernadette AM O’Hare & Andre Python & Syed Haider Ali Zaidi & Naor Bar-Zeev, 2021. "Government Revenue and Child and Maternal Mortality," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 213-229, February.

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