State legislation on smoking and health: A comparison of two policies

The two principal smoking-related state legislative activities stand in sharp contrast to one another. Cigarette excise taxation diffused among the states well before the connection between smoking and illness became a public issue, yet more recent tax increases appear to reflect a response to the national anti-smoking campaign. The growing disparity in cigarette prices between tobacco and other states has created a lucrative market in bootlegged cigarettes and has thereby brought new taxation to a virtual standstill for six years. Laws restricting smoking in public places represent a phenomenon of the 1970's clearly bearing the imprint of the anti-smoking campaign. From 1972 through 1978, the number of states with such laws in effect grew from 5 to 36, and the restrictiveness of the laws also increased. The dramatic correlation between diffusion of the laws and decreases in cigarette consumption rates seems best interpreted as each of these reflecting changes in social attitudes toward smoking.     

Sind Demokratien die besseren Steuerstaaten?

In the aftershock of the financial crisis many scholars and practitioners criticized the perceived loss of democratic control of national tax states. Many of these arguments are based on the assumption that democracies ought and should pursue policies that reflect the preferences of the majority of society. Hence, more democratic countries are expected to have higher tax ratios and more progressive tax systems than their autocratic counterparts. Yet, within the literature on regime type and taxation this assumption is more and more challenged. In this article, I summarize the arguments on the effect of democratic and autocratic institutions on the size and progressivity of tax states and test the effect of regime type on tax ratios and progressive taxation for 138 countries since the 1980s. My analysis illustrates that more democratic countries have higher tax ratios since the end of the Cold War. Yet, this effect varies over time and regime type plays no role for progressive taxation in general. Economic development on the other hand matters for both progressivity and size of the tax state. Income matters mostly for the tax state, not regime type.     

Parents,public policy,and youth smoking

This paper jointly examines the importance of parental influences, prices, and tobacco control policies on the smoking behavior of youths. Data are drawn from the Audits & Surveys (A&S) 1996 survey of high school students across the United States from “The Study of Smoking and Tobacco Use Among Young People” to examine the impact of parental influences on the probability of youth smoking in the context of both specific observable parenting behaviors and in terms of youths' perceptions of the importance of their parents' opinions. The key finding is that specific parental influences (such as communication/bonding (extent of discussions about daily issues between parent/adult and child), limit‐setting with regard to free time, home smoking rules, and parental smoking behavior) and the extent to which teenagers value their parents' opinions play a significant role in youth smoking decisions. Our results by age reveal that specific modifications related to improving communication channels and implementing home smoking rules and more general changes that improve the quality of the parent‐child relationship so teens place a higher value on their parents' opinions are likely to be particularly effective in the early teen years. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Policy attribute framing: A comparison between three policy instruments for personal emissions reduction

A comparative experiment in the UK examined people's willingness to change energy consumption behavior under three different policy framings: energy tax, carbon tax, and personal carbon allowances (PCA). PCA is a downstream cap‐and‐trade policy proposed in the UK, in which emission rights are allocated to individuals. We hypothesized that due to economic, pro‐environmental and mental accounting drivers PCA would have greater potential to deliver emissions reduction than taxation. Participants (n = 1,096) received one version of a survey with the same energy‐behavior–related questions and identical incurred costs under one of the following framings: energy tax (where carbon was not mentioned), carbon tax, and PCA. Results suggest that policies that draw people's attention to carbon (PCA and carbon taxation) could have greater impact on their stated willingness to reduce energy consumption, and on the reduction amounts prompted, than would a non‐overt price signal (energy tax). There is mixed evidence, however, as to whether PCA or carbon taxation would produce the largest energy demand reductions. Some indication was found for a spillover toward wider carbon conservation under the PCA framing. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Do cigarette pictorial warnings really work for Korean smokers?

According to previous research, cigarette pictorial warnings are effective in not only preventing smoking but also in inducing smoking cessation. In Korea, however, the smoking rate has not changed much despite implementing pictorial warnings on cigarette packaging. Thus, in this study, I focused on how smokers perceive cigarette pictorial warnings. To do this, I conducted in-depth interviews with cigarette buyers at a convenience store where real cigarettes were purchased, and I observed their behaviors at the same time. Thirty buyers responded to the interview. During the interviews, respondents said that when they first saw a tobacco warning picture, they were affected by it at the moment, but it did not help at all to quit smoking. Rather, they justified smoking by considering the warning picture as a picture or a cigarette company logo. They also had a positive illusion of, “It will never happen to me” about the smoking-related illnesses presented in the warning pictures. Above all, cigarette warning pictures were not effective in reducing rates of smoking. This means that the tobacco warning picture policy did not properly influence smokers' perceptions. Further research on the usefulness of cigarette pictorial warning is needed.     

The impact of the Master Settlement Agreement on cigarette consumption.

In 1998, 46 states and the four major tobacco companies signed the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), which stipulated that the tobacco companies pay states $206 billion over 25 years and take steps to reduce youth smoking. The remaining states settled separately. We sought to determine the effect of the settlements on demand for cigarettes. Using a nationwide sample from 1990 to 2002, we estimated a model of the decision to smoke cigarettes. The settlements affected smoking primarily through price increases for cigarettes, although there was evidence that other policy instruments influenced smoking rates for younger smokers. By 2002, the settlements had reduced overall smoking rates by 13 percent for ages 18 to 20 and older than 65 and 5 percent for ages 21 to 64.     

Controlled Restructuring in Finland?

Surveying the economic legislation and policies of the new Blue - Red coalition government in Finland in six separate fields - competition policies, industrial relations, income policies, the financial system, taxation and the public sector - the question is asked whether the different measures can be seen as parts of an overall strategy to change the Finnish mode of regulation. Is it possible that we are witnessing the development of a two-tiered form of corporatism, combining a more traditional social corporatism on the macro-level and a new liberal corporatism on an intermediate level of production and innovation?     

Federal policy mandating safer cigarettes: a hypothetical simulation of the anticipated population health gains or losses.

If manufacturing a safer cigarette is technically possible--an open question--then mandating that tobacco manufacturers improve the safety of cigarettes would likely have both positive and negative implications for the nation's health. On the one hand, removing toxins may reduce the incidence of smoking-related diseases and premature mortality in smokers. On the other hand, smokers might be less inclined to quit, those who have quit might resume the habit, and youth who have never smoked will have one less reason to avoid tobacco use. To assess the expected population health impacts of a legislative or regulatory mandate, we created the Tobacco Policy Model, a system dynamics computer simulation model. The model relies on secondary data and simulates the U.S. population over time spans as long as 50 years. Our simulation results reveal that even if requiring cigarettes to be safer makes smoking more attractive and increases tobacco use, a net gain in population health is still possible.     

Regulating drinking through alcohol taxation and minimum unit pricing: A historical perspective on alcohol pricing interventions

Discourse on alcohol policy in several countries has recently become dominated by discussions of pricing. In Britain, proposals for a minimum unit price for alcoholic drinks are frequently depicted as radical and new. However, other means of legally intervening in alcohol pricing have long been used to shape consumption habits. Key to recognizing this historical lineage is a conceptualization of taxation as partly a form of regulation. This article builds upon findings from a wider historical study of alcohol excise duties in England and Wales to develop an empirically‐based typology of the main forms of government interventions in alcohol pricing. By connecting some instances of alcohol excise taxation to government attempts to shape behavior, this typology enables advances in understanding of the relationship between taxation and regulation. In so doing, the article also provides an original historical perspective on an ongoing policy debate. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd     

Globale Besteuerung und Demokratische Legitimität

The democratic state has been offering the conditions for legitimately levying taxes. Tax revenues have been securing the sovereign’s ability to act, policy aims pursued through taxation have been the outcome of a democratic process and the coercion backed institutions levying taxes have enjoyed the status of democratic legitimacy. But a twofold dynamic challenges this status quo. States are under pressure to address problems to which global taxation offers the most promising response. And phenomena like capital mobility impose constraints on the state’s ability to effectively use the policy instrument of taxation. Under what institutional arrangements could taxation be maintained as a justifiable instrument? And what should future institutional arrangements of public finance look like?     

State involvement in limiting textbook choice by school districts

Who gets to decide what textbooks are used in America’s public school classrooms varies by state. States can let each school district decide, provide standards that must be followed and make available an incomplete listing of books meeting those standards, or allow schools to choose books only from a list provided by the state. I present a model that provides an explanation for state limits on textbook selection by school districts. I examine the roles played by decision making costs, effectiveness of voters, religious composition, power of teachers, and propensity of state governments to interfere with or to help districts in textbook selection policies at the state level. There has been virtually no research on this topic. My findings corroborate the extant literature that addresses interference by state governments in local affairs and extend the morality politics literature by finding a strong link between religious fundamentalism and state-level policies. I also find that state book lists are less likely (1) in more educated states, where voters are better able to select the most appropriate textbook, (2) in states with smaller school districts, where voters are more involved in the schools, and (3) in states with stronger teacher unions, giving teachers more power in textbook selection.     

Shaping the Evolution of the Information Flow: The Centralizing Mechanisms in the Evolution of the North American Tobacco Quitline Consortium

The research reported here is an analysis of the evolution of the relationships that comprise a single public health network, focusing especially on the position of the network administrative organization (Provan and Kenis 2008 Provan, K. G. and P. Kenis. 2008. “Modes of Network Governance: Structure, Management, and Effectiveness.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 18(2): 229–252.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in the flow of knowledge among a large number of organizations providing similar services. Our study examines the North American Quitline Consortium (NAQC), a multi-sector network that spans the US and Canada and whose members provide telephone-based tobacco cessation services to anyone interested in quitting smoking. Data were collected using web-based surveys at three different points of time. Implications are discussed for network organizing, for both theory and practice, focusing especially on the importance of the network administrative organization in shaping the evolution of the whole network information flow.     

The public demand for smoking bans

Smoking bans are gaining widespread support in the United States and other countries. While supporters argue that bans are necessary to resolve market failures associated with negative externalities, the Coase Theorem predicts that, under various conditions, private markets internalize negative externalities. We examine the smoking issue within the framework of the Coase Theorem and hypothesize that smoking bans misallocate air space resources shared by smokers and nonsmokers. Because smoking bans shift ownership of scarce resources, they are also hypothesized to transfer income from one party (smokers) to another party (nonsmokers). Supporting evidence for these hypotheses is provided by an examination of a comprehensive smoking ban imposed in San Luis Obispo, CA.     

Packaging Support for Low‐Income Families: Policy Variation across the United States

This paper addresses a gap in state‐level comparative social policy research by analyzing policies that support low‐income families with children. Variation in state policy “packages” is measured by considering three characteristics of 11 social programs. Individual measures of policy are found to be weakly and inconsistently inter‐correlated at the state level, but when cluster analysis is used to analyze multiple dimensions simultaneously, five clusters or regime types are identified that have distinctive policy approaches. These range from the most minimal provisions, to conservative approaches emphasizing private responsibility, to integrated approaches that combine generous direct assistance with employment support and policies that enforce family responsibility. A comparison of a subset of programs at two points in time (1994 and 1998) suggests that states made substantial changes in cash assistance and taxation policies after the 1996 federal welfare reforms. The magnitude and direction of these changes remained consistent with the state clusters identified in 1994. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

西部地区运用财税政策吸引FDI效果的实证研究

90年代中后期国家陆续给予了西部地区一系列优惠政策,但从西部地区吸引FDI的总量和质量来看,都远远低于全国水平。本文对西部地区财税政策吸引FDI的效果进行分析,观察外商投资者对于财税政策的敏感程度,提出吸引FDI的相应对策。     

Taxation and Distributive Justice

Distributive justice concerns the fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. Opposition to higher rates of taxation, or even existing levels of taxation, is often made on grounds that such taxes are unfair burdens. This fairness argument can be given a number of further, more-specific formulations. Libertarians, such as Robert Nozick, argue that taxation of income is unfair because it violates individual rights. They invoke an entitlement argument that presumes that the appropriate baseline of property rights is pretax income . Others take issue with specific policies that are supported by taxation, such as welfare provisions, and argue that welfare reform is necessary because tax burdens are only legitimate when they satisfy some form of reciprocity thesis . These arguments are critically assessed here in relation to three recent books – The Cost of Rights , The Myth of Ownership and The Civic Minimum – which explore different arguments often invoked in defence of tax cuts. Themes that raise important questions about taxation and justice are also examined – private property, welfare reform and inheritance. The real challenge facing justice theorists is to take scarcity seriously; thus, I emphasise the shortcomings of simply endorsing a 'cost-blind', rights-oriented conception of justice, which currently dominates debates in normative political theory.     

Health disparities: Using policies to rethink our strategies for eliminating the impact of food deserts by focusing on unhealthy dietary patterns

For years, we have been interested in understanding the relationship between dietary patterns and diseases, and most recently, we have put efforts toward analyzing the impact of food deserts as they relate to dietary patterns. Unhealthy eating has become an epidemic in low‐income neighborhoods that are considered to be food deserts due to the fact that people are not meeting their recommended daily intake of nutritionally dense foods. Adults should be consuming at least 20 to 35 g of fiber daily, however, many Americans only consume 12 to 17 g of fiber daily at best. Furthermore, as a society, we Americans consume way too much added sugar, saturated fat, and salt. Although there are a number of reasons that unhealthy dietary patterns exist in our society especially in low‐income communities, it is important that we pay particular attention to how food deserts have developed and how they are major contributors to the overall poor health of low‐income Americans. Therefore, the purpose of this is paper is to encourage its audience to rethink how we can implement policies to address the issue of unhealthy dietary patterns by reducing or eliminating food deserts. Specifically, we explore the effect of implementing evidence‐based policies such as nutrition initiatives, corner store initiatives, menu labeling, food assistance programs, and the punitive taxation of sugary beverages and unhealthy foods similar to the punitive taxes placed on tobacco.     

Is small beautiful? Village level taxation of natural resources in Tanzania

This article examines collection of natural resources revenue by village governments in Tanzania as part of a decentralisation reform. An analysis of empirical data in the form of taxation records from 14 villages, which collect and retain revenues on natural resources utilisation suggests that decentralising revenue collection to the lowest local government tier may yield: (i) considerable increases in revenue collection; (ii) increased transparency in public finances through requirements that village governments document their incomes and expenditures to the villagers; and (iii) a financial surplus that is used to finance public services at the village level. The evidence presented in this article suggests that decentralising taxation to the lowest local government tier may be a viable approach to enhance revenue collection on the utilisation of relatively low value natural resources, and assure that a share of the collected revenue is used to finance public services. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of parties,economic growth,and public sector expansion: A comparison of long-term dynamics in the Scandinavian and Anglo-American democracies

Abstract. This paper discusses (1) the extent to which the partisan composition of government affects economic policies and macroeconomic outcomes, and (2) the interrelationship between public spending, taxation and economic growth. These two issues are connected. Since target variables and instruments affect each other reciprocally, the specification of the partisan model should encompass both a reaction function and an outcome function. A pooled vector autoregressive model suggests that during the last century left–wing governments in the United States, Britain and Canada have reinforced the growth of both public spending and GNP. Only public sector expansion is affected by partisanship in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In the Anglo–American countries changes in spending occur before changes in economic growth in terms of a lagged crowding out effect. Spending and revenues appear to affect each other reciprocally. By contrast, public sector expansion in Scandinavia stimulates growth, while taxation leads spending.     

How the European Union constrains the state: Multilevel governance of taxation

This article challenges the common assumption that the European Union (EU) has little power over taxation. Based on a comprehensive analysis of EU tax legislation and European Court of Justice (ECJ) tax jurisprudence from 1958 to 2007, the article shows that the EU exerts considerable regulatory control over the Member States' taxing power and imposes tighter constraints on Member State taxes than the American federal government imposes on American state taxation. These findings contradict the standard account of the EU as a regulatory polity that specialises in apolitical issues of market creation and leaves control of highly politicised core functions of government (defence, taxation, social security, education, etc.) to the Member States; despite strong treaty safeguards, national tax autonomy is undermined by EU regulation.