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TThe case against Big Soda is being developed. At the end of March, a policy statement condemned sugar-sweetened beverages as a "serious threat", and scientific studies demonstrating a risk of heart disease and cancer have recently been published. A future where soda is regulated as cigarettes is on the horizon, but a big question remains: what will it take for people to stop drinking alcohol? New search published Wednesday in Economic Survey Dive into the first great success of the tax on sodas to discover.
In 2014, the city of Berkeley, California, implemented its response to the problem of sodas: a tax on sodas, which levied a tax on sugary drinks. There is good evidence that the tax on soft drinks has worked: a study published this year in American Journal of Public Health found a Decrease of 52% consumption of sugary drinks after the adoption of the tax. But was it the only price increase that drove people out? The new study shows that in Berkeley it took taxes and social changes to get people to change their habits.
University of California, professor at Berkeley Sofia Villas-Boas, Ph.D. and Ph.D. Candidate Scott Kaplan shows in the new newspaper that soda purchases have dropped 10 to 20% on the Berkeley campus directly after the tax on soft drinks was pbaded but before prices officially rose in 2015. They also used Nielsen's data to show a similar trend: soda purchases at local stores fell by 10.8% even before the entry into force of the rise in price.
"The election results have resulted in a 10-20% reduction in regular soft drink sales before consumers face higher prices either on campus or in off-campus stores," Kaplan said. . reverse"This suggests that you might not witness these effects if a tax on sweetened beverages (or sodas) was applied without prior campaigning or public voting."
This badysis also showed that the consumption of sodas on the Berkeley campus continued to decline after the implementation of the tax. After the city's soft drink tax, campus sales declined even more strongly, even though the university had not yet increased its prices. Soda ash sales at UC Berkeley decreased by 18% in March 2015 and decreased by 36% in July 2016, remaining at their lowest levels thereafter.
This way of thinking suggests that taxes on soft drinks actually play a role in reducing this habit, but not only because they cause prices to rise: it is because they also change attitudes towards soft drinks. soft drinks.
The effect of the 2014 vote on soda consumption habits
The introduction of the Berkeley soft-drink tax in 2014 comes after a long move called "Berkeley Vs. Big Soda "- an information campaign to convince citizens to vote in favor of the tax on soft drinks. These authors did not observe any change in consumption patterns on the Berkeley campus during the campaign but, immediately after the local vote, soft drink sales fell.
The question that Kaplan and Villas-Boas raise in their paper is: How Did this campaign and the ensuing elections change people's minds? They use several models of human behavior to explain their results.
One way of looking at it is to recognize that the Berkeley Vs. Big Soda simply alerted people to the risks badociated with soda, which led them to change their behavior. In particular, as in the New York PSA, drawing a parallel between drinking a glbad of soda and drinking a glbad of fat, learning more about the effects of it on health can make the drink more difficult to digest.
Another way to explain it is the model of "rational dependence". While people may have already been drinking soda, the impending price increases made them think twice. After it became clear that prices were going to rise after the election, they may have already cut back on their spending, Kaplan says.
Finally, the decline in the use of soft drinks could change, especially for soda drinkers on the Berkeley campus. In this model, it is the election itself that has the power to change decisions. The mere fact that taxes on soft drinks were pbaded may have revealed the community's negative position on soft drinks, which could deter people from acting against the grain.
"We can not directly identify one of these mechanisms without a more experimental setting, but I will say that other studies of the academic context (eg alcohol consumption) have revealed that social norms are extremely important. Kaplan says.
The power of information to change social norms about drug use is powerful. Anti-smoking campaigns have led to a decline in teen smoking – but it has been replaced by the electronic cigarette, which is still considered cool. In response, the FDA has launched a campaign aimed at teenagers that tries to convince them otherwise by changing the social norms relating to vaping.
Similarly, we can start to see the same thing with soda. In a joint statement issued at the end of March, the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics both insisted that the social acceptability of soda consumption be socially altered. and argued for a tax on soft drinks at national level. The findings of Villas-Boas and Kaplan in Berkeley could fuel their fire.
Whether taxes on soft drinks are collected or not, it's time to start seeing soft drinks differently. At Berkeley, the tide is already starting to turn.
Abstract: We examine how soft drink sales have changed due to the focus on the campaign and the election result of a local excise tax on sweetened beverages. Using panel data from beverage sales at university retailers in Berkeley, Calif., We estimate that soft drinks over beverage drinks dropped significantly immediately after the elections, several months before tax was imposed. in the city of Berkeley or on campus. Additional scanner data from off-campus retailers indicates that this result is not unique to the university context. Our results suggest that media coverage of the soda tax and election results may have greater effects on buying behavior than the tax itself.
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