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In the News

US sugar tax effectiveness questioned

Geoff Riley

27th August 2015

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A new paper http://www.nber.org/papers/w21465 looks at the short term impact of the first city-level tax to be levied in the USA on sugar-sweetened beverages which was enacted by the voters of Berkeley, California in November, 2014. It finds that the impact of the tax on consumption has been limited because only half of the tax has been passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. For Coke and Pepsi, only 22 percent of the tax was passed on to consumers.

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Geoff Riley

Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for nearly forty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD and Revision conferences in the UK and overseas.

@tutor2uGeoff

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