How effective are VAT reforms in improving healthy dietary choices by EU consumers?
Submitted: 2023-10-31
|Accepted: 2024-05-09
|Published: 2025-06-16
Copyright (c) 2025 Beatrice Farkas, Ignacio Pérez Domínguez, Simone Pieralli, Christian Elleby
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Keywords:
diets, health leakage, agricultural commodity markets, modelling, VAT reform
Supporting agencies:
Abstract:
Governments are increasingly considering fiscal instruments to improve dietary health. This paper quantifies the medium-term impacts on European food markets of a differentiated VAT policy that promotes healthy food consumption while discouraging intake of less nutritious products. Scenarios involve reduced VAT on grains, pulses, and poultry, and increased rates on beef, pork, sugar, and highfat dairy. Our results show a significant decline in domestic consumption of targeted foods. However, part of this reduction is exported to other markets – a phenomenon described as “health leakage,” raising questions about the broader effectiveness of such fiscal interventions.
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