The macroeconomic impacts of diet-related fiscal policy for NCD prevention: A systematic review
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Author(s)
Mounsey, Sarah
Veerman, Lennert
Jan, Stephen
Thow, Anne Marie
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2020
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BACKGROUND: Diet-related fiscal policies are effective interventions to address non-communicable disease. However, despite these being economic policy instruments, there is little public health attention given to the evidence of macroeconomic impacts. This review aims to assess the global evidence for the macroeconomic impact of diet-related fiscal policies for non-communicable disease prevention on industry revenue, government revenue and employment. METHODS: For this systematic review we comprehensively searched the bibliographic databases MEDLINE, OvidSP, EMBASE, Global Health, SCOPUS, CINAHL and ECONLIT, and Google Scholar ...
View more >BACKGROUND: Diet-related fiscal policies are effective interventions to address non-communicable disease. However, despite these being economic policy instruments, there is little public health attention given to the evidence of macroeconomic impacts. This review aims to assess the global evidence for the macroeconomic impact of diet-related fiscal policies for non-communicable disease prevention on industry revenue, government revenue and employment. METHODS: For this systematic review we comprehensively searched the bibliographic databases MEDLINE, OvidSP, EMBASE, Global Health, SCOPUS, CINAHL and ECONLIT, and Google Scholar for English peer-reviewed studies or grey literature, with no date cut-off. Global interventions with a focus on diet-related fiscal strategies were assessed for the outcomes of industry revenue, gross domestic product, government revenue and employment. We excluded non-English papers. FINDINGS: Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria. All studies were on sugar sweetened beverage taxation and one also included an energy-dense food tax. Nine were modelling studies and two used interrupted time series analysis based on empirical evidence. One study found potential employment increases because of taxation; two found no significant job losses and eight found reduced employment. Taxes reduced sales volume and revenue within the sugar/beverage industry. Government revenue generation was positive in all studies. One study considered redistribution of consumer and government spending to other goods and services; INTERPRETATION: We found no robust evidence for negative macroeconomic impacts of diet-related fiscal policies, likely a reflection of the limited methodology used in the analyses. This review suggests that there is a need for more high-quality research into the macroeconomic impacts of diet related fiscal measures and similar to tobacco taxation, government should consider directing revenue generated towards complementary measures to generate employment and/or provide livelihood training for those affected.
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View more >BACKGROUND: Diet-related fiscal policies are effective interventions to address non-communicable disease. However, despite these being economic policy instruments, there is little public health attention given to the evidence of macroeconomic impacts. This review aims to assess the global evidence for the macroeconomic impact of diet-related fiscal policies for non-communicable disease prevention on industry revenue, government revenue and employment. METHODS: For this systematic review we comprehensively searched the bibliographic databases MEDLINE, OvidSP, EMBASE, Global Health, SCOPUS, CINAHL and ECONLIT, and Google Scholar for English peer-reviewed studies or grey literature, with no date cut-off. Global interventions with a focus on diet-related fiscal strategies were assessed for the outcomes of industry revenue, gross domestic product, government revenue and employment. We excluded non-English papers. FINDINGS: Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria. All studies were on sugar sweetened beverage taxation and one also included an energy-dense food tax. Nine were modelling studies and two used interrupted time series analysis based on empirical evidence. One study found potential employment increases because of taxation; two found no significant job losses and eight found reduced employment. Taxes reduced sales volume and revenue within the sugar/beverage industry. Government revenue generation was positive in all studies. One study considered redistribution of consumer and government spending to other goods and services; INTERPRETATION: We found no robust evidence for negative macroeconomic impacts of diet-related fiscal policies, likely a reflection of the limited methodology used in the analyses. This review suggests that there is a need for more high-quality research into the macroeconomic impacts of diet related fiscal measures and similar to tobacco taxation, government should consider directing revenue generated towards complementary measures to generate employment and/or provide livelihood training for those affected.
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Journal Title
Economics & Human Biology
Volume
37
Copyright Statement
© 2020 Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is properly cited.
Subject
Applied economics
Public health nutrition
Social Sciences
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Economics
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health