The harmful effects of smoking on population health have long been shown. More recently, the exposure to second hand smoke (SHS) has also been proved to have detrimental health effects (U.S.DHHS, 2006). In order to improve the public health, governments introduce policies aimed at reducing smoking and exposure to SHS. The aim of this thesis is to analyse some of the economic aspects of these policies in Ireland. ; TARA (Trinity?s Access to Research Archive) has a robust takedown policy. Please contact us if you have any concerns: rssadmin@tcd.ie
Background Ireland introduced comprehensive smoke-free workplace legislation in 2004. This study evaluates the economic impact of the workplace smoking ban on the value of sales in bars. The results indicate that although some bars saw positive effects and some negative, the overall impact of the smoking ban on the value of sales in bars was negligible. These findings provide further supporting evidence that comprehensive smoke-free workplace legislation does not harm hospitality businesses while having positive health effects.
Agriculture in the European Union (EU) is strongly influenced by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). There have been repeated calls for CAP to address nutrition related health, particularly obesity and noncommunicable disease (NCD) in the EU. However, aligning agricultural policy such as CAP with nutrition is complex, not least because the aims of agricultural policy are predominantly economic, presenting a challenge for developing coherence between agricultural trade and health policy. This research examined the political priority given to nutrition-related health concerns within CAP to date, and the solutions suggested by agricultural, trade and health policy-makers and public health nutrition advocates, via interviews of 20 high-level participants from respective sectors. The participants provided diverse perspectives, often varying by sector and institution, on the connections between agricultural policy and nutrition-related health, the extent to which nutrition concerns have been addressed via CAP and whether CAP is an appropriate and effective policy approach to improve nutrition-related health in the EU in the future. The key findings suggest the need for communication and agreement of clear high-level nutrition guidelines, clarity on the EU mandate to address nutrition-related health concerns via policy, and stronger engagement of civil society in the issues if CAP is to address nutrition more than it is doing currently. The difference in worldviews between agricultural/trade representatives, and those from public health, also needs to be addressed.
Agriculture in the European Union (EU) is strongly influenced by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). There have been repeated calls for CAP to address nutrition related health, particularly obesity and noncommunicable disease (NCD) in the EU. However, aligning agricultural policy such as CAP with nutrition is complex, not least because the aims of agricultural policy are predominantly economic, presenting a challenge for developing coherence between agricultural trade and health policy. This research examined the political priority given to nutrition-related health concerns within CAP to date, and the solutions suggested by agricultural, trade and health policy-makers and public health nutrition advocates, via interviews of 20 high-level participants from respective sectors. The participants provided diverse perspectives, often varying by sector and institution, on the connections between agricultural policy and nutrition-related health, the extent to which nutrition concerns have been addressed via CAP and whether CAP is an appropriate and effective policy approach to improve nutrition-related health in the EU in the future. The key findings suggest the need for communication and agreement of clear high-level nutrition guidelines, clarity on the EU mandate to address nutrition-related health concerns via policy, and stronger engagement of civil society in the issues if CAP is to address nutrition more than it is doing currently. The difference in worldviews between agricultural/trade representatives, and those from public health, also needs to be addressed.
OBJECTIVE: Increasing prevalence of overweight and obese people in England has led policymakers to consider regulating the use of price promotions on foods high in fat, sugar and salt content. In January 2019, the government opened a consultation programme for a policy proposal that significantly restricts the use of price promotions that can induce consumers to buy higher volumes of unhealthy foods and beverages. These proposed policies are the first of their kind in public health and are believed to reduce excess purchasing and, therefore, overconsumption of unhealthy products. This study summarises evidence relating price promotions to the purchasing of food and drink for home consumption and places it in the context of the proposed policy. DESIGN: Non-systematic review of quantitative analyses of price promotions in food and drink published in peer-reviewed journals and sighted by PubMed, ScienceDirect & EBSCOhost between 1980 and January 2018. RESULTS: While the impact of price promotions on sales has been of interest to marketing academics for a long time with modelling studies showing that its use has increased food and drink sales by 12-43 %, it is only now being picked up in the public health sphere. However, existing evidence does not consider the effects of removing or restricting the use of price promotions across the food sector. In this commentary, we discuss existing evidence, how it deals with the complexity of shoppers' behaviour in reacting to price promotions on foods and, importantly, what can be learned from it in this policy context. CONCLUSIONS: The current evidence base supports the notion that price promotions increase purchasing of unhealthy food, and while the proposed restriction policy is yet to be evaluated for consumption and health effects, there is arguably sufficient evidence to proceed. This evidence is not restricted to volume-based promotions. Close monitoring and proper evaluation should follow to provide empirical evidence of its intended and unintended effects.
Agriculture in the European Union (EU) is strongly influenced by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). There have been repeated calls for CAP to address nutrition-related health, particularly obesity and non-communicable disease (NCD) in the EU. However, aligning agricultural policy such as CAP with nutrition is complex, not least because the aims of agricultural policy are predominantly economic, presenting a challenge for developing coherence between agricultural trade and health policy. This research examined the political priority given to nutrition-related health concerns within CAP to date, and the solutions suggested by agricultural, trade and health policy-makers and public health nutrition advocates, via interviews of 20 high-level participants from respective sectors. The participants provided diverse perspectives, often varying by sector and institution, on the connections between agricultural policy and nutrition-related health, the extent to which nutrition concerns have been addressed via CAP and whether CAP is an appropriate and effective policy approach to improve nutrition-related health in the EU in the future. The key findings suggest the need for communication and agreement of clear high-level nutrition guidelines, clarity on the EU mandate to address nutrition-related health concerns via policy, and stronger engagement of civil society in the issues if CAP is to address nutrition more than it is doing currently. The difference in worldviews between agricultural/trade representatives, and those from public health, also needs to be addressed.
AbstractConcerns about the growing prevalence of obesity worldwide have led researchers and policy makers to investigate the potential health impact of fiscal policies such as taxes on unhealthy foods. A common instrument used to measure the relationship between food prices and food consumption is the price elasticity of demand. Using meta‐regression analysis we assessed how differences in methodological approaches to estimating demand affected food price elasticities. Most methodological differences had a statistically significant impact on elasticity estimates, which stresses the importance of using meta‐estimates or testing the sensitivity of simulation outcomes to a range of elasticity parameters before drawing policy conclusions.
On 16(th) March 2016, the government of the United Kingdom announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), under which UK soft-drink manufacturers were to be taxed according to the volume of products with added sugar they produced or imported. We use 'event study' methodology to assess the likely financial effect of the SDIL on parts of the soft drinks industry, using stock returns of four UK-operating soft-drink firms listed on the London Stock Exchange. We found that three of the four firms experienced negative abnormal stock returns on the day of announcement. A cross-sectional analysis revealed that the cumulative abnormal returns of soft drink stocks were not significantly less than that of other food and drinks-related stocks beyond the day of the SDIL announcement. Our findings suggest that the SDIL announcement was initially perceived as detrimental news by the market but negative stock returns were short-lived, indicating a lack of major concerns for industry. There was limited evidence of a negative stock market reaction to the two subsequent announcements: release of draft legislation on 5(th) December 2016, and confirmation of the tax rates on 8(th) March 2017.
On 16th March 2016, the government of the United Kingdom announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), under which UK soft-drink manufacturers were to be taxed according to the volume of products with added sugar they produced or imported. We use 'event study' methodology to assess the likely financial effect of the SDIL on parts of the soft drinks industry, using stock returns of four UK-operating soft-drink firms listed on the London Stock Exchange. We found that three of the four firms experienced negative abnormal stock returns on the day of announcement. A cross-sectional analysis revealed that the cumulative abnormal returns of soft drink stocks were not significantly less than that of other food and drinks-related stocks beyond the day of the SDIL announcement. Our findings suggest that the SDIL announcement was initially perceived as detrimental news by the market but negative stock returns were short-lived, indicating a lack of major concerns for industry. There was limited evidence of a negative stock market reaction to the two subsequent announcements: release of draft legislation on 5th December 2016, and confirmation of the tax rates on 8th March 2017.
In March 2016, the UK government announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) which came into effect in April 2018. In common with the reaction to sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes in other countries, the SDIL announcement was met with strong industry opposition, with claims that it would harm their profits. The SDIL was designed to incentivise reformulation of SSBs by providing a 2-year delay between the announcement and the enforcement of the levy, and adopting a two-tiered rate based on the sugar content of the drinks. Using interrupted time series analysis, this paper examines how the domestic turnover of UK soft drinks manufacturers changed after the announcement and the implementation of the SDIL. Our results show some evidence of a short-term negative impact of the SDIL announcement on the domestic turnover of the UK soft drinks manufacturers. This effect, however, did not continue post-implementation. These findings suggest that manufacturers were, to a large extent, able to mitigate the effects of levy before it came into effect.
In March 2016, the UK government announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) which came into effect in April 2018. In common with the reaction to sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes in other countries, the SDIL announcement was met with strong industry opposition, with claims that it would harm their profits. The SDIL was designed to incentivise reformulation of SSBs by providing a 2-year delay between the announcement and the enforcement of the levy, and adopting a two-tiered rate based on the sugar content of the drinks. Using interrupted time series analysis, this paper examines how the domestic turnover of UK soft drinks manufacturers changed after the announcement and the implementation of the SDIL. Our results show some evidence of a short-term negative impact of the SDIL announcement on the domestic turnover of the UK soft drinks manufacturers. This effect, however, did not continue post-implementation. These findings suggest that manufacturers were, to a large extent, able to mitigate the effects of levy before it came into effect.
In: Law , C , Cornelsen , L , Adams , J , Penney , T , Rutter , H , White , M & Smith , R 2020 , ' An analysis of the stock market reaction to the announcements of the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy ' , Economics & Human Biology , vol. 38 , 100834 , pp. 100834 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2019.100834
On 16th March 2016, the government of the United Kingdom announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), under which UK soft-drink manufacturers were to be taxed according to the volume of products with added sugar they produced or imported. We use 'event study' methodology to assess the likely financial effect of the SDIL on parts of the soft drinks industry, using stock returns of four UK-operating soft-drink firms listed on the London Stock Exchange. We found that three of the four firms experienced negative abnormal stock returns on the day of announcement. A cross-sectional analysis revealed that the cumulative abnormal returns of soft drink stocks were not significantly less than that of other food and drinks-related stocks beyond the day of the SDIL announcement. Our findings suggest that the SDIL announcement was initially perceived as detrimental news by the market but negative stock returns were short-lived, indicating a lack of major concerns for industry. There was limited evidence of a negative stock market reaction to the two subsequent announcements: release of draft legislation on 5th December 2016, and confirmation of the tax rates on 8th March 2017.
In: Law , C , Cornelsen , L , Adams , J , Pell , D , Rutter , H , White , M & Smith , R 2020 , ' The impact of UK soft drinks industry levy on manufacturers' domestic turnover ' , Economics and Human Biology , vol. 37 , 100866 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2020.100866
In March 2016, the UK government announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) which came into effect in April 2018. In common with the reaction to sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes in other countries, the SDIL announcement was met with strong industry opposition, with claims that it would harm their profits. The SDIL was designed to incentivise reformulation of SSBs by providing a 2-year delay between the announcement and the enforcement of the levy, and adopting a two-tiered rate based on the sugar content of the drinks. Using interrupted time series analysis, this paper examines how the domestic turnover of UK soft drinks manufacturers changed after the announcement and the implementation of the SDIL. Our results show some evidence of a short-term negative impact of the SDIL announcement on the domestic turnover of the UK soft drinks manufacturers. This effect, however, did not continue post-implementation. These findings suggest that manufacturers were, to a large extent, able to mitigate the effects of levy before it came into effect.
On 16th March 2016, the government of the United Kingdom announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), under which UK soft-drink manufacturers were to be taxed according to the volume of products with added sugar they produced or imported. We use 'event study' methodology to assess the likely financial effect of the SDIL on parts of the soft drinks industry, using stock returns of four UK-operating soft-drink firms listed on the London Stock Exchange. We found that three of the four firms experienced negative abnormal stock returns on the day of announcement. A cross-sectional analysis revealed that the cumulative abnormal returns of soft drink stocks were not significantly less than that of other food and drinks-related stocks beyond the day of the SDIL announcement. Our findings suggest that the SDIL announcement was initially perceived as detrimental news by the market but negative stock returns were short-lived, indicating a lack of major concerns for industry. There was limited evidence of a negative stock market reaction to the two subsequent announcements: release of draft legislation on 5th December 2016, and confirmation of the tax rates on 8th March 2017.