Many premature deaths from non-communicable diseases can be prevented if countries enact forceful measures to reduce the risk of their citizens falling prey to these diseases. Making it more expensive to consume tobacco, health-harming alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages is key to governments ach...

In this blog, I examine why policymakers should ensure that inflation does not erode corrective taxes on killer products and make them more affordable. Using a survey of recent health tax measures, I show that some countries have ensured that health taxes are stepped up while most have hesitated, an...

Governments use corrective taxes to reduce the use of products that harm well-being and create costs not just to society at large (externalities) but also to individual consumers who may underestimate the future health consequences of their current consumption. Taxes on gas to reduce pollution or on...

Tobacco use is the world’s leading cause of preventable death, claiming eight million lives per year, which together with tobacco-attributable disability is equivalent to an annual global productivity loss of 1.8 percent of GDP. Extensive evidence shows that tobacco taxation is the most effective an...

This blog and the accompanying CGD Policy Brief are a follow-up to the 2019 “Health Taxes Save Lives” report by the Task Force on Fiscal Policy for Health co-chaired by Michael Bloomberg and Lawrence Summers.