a b s t r a c t The effects of health-related taxes and subsidies on food and beverages have mainly been investigated using models that assume identical price responses among high-and low-consuming households. Diet-related health problems are, however, more likely among households with high intakes of unhealthy foods or low intakes of healthy foods than in households with average intakes. In this article, we focus on purchases of healthy and unhealthy foods among low-, median-, and high-purchasing households. The effects of an increase in the Norwegian value-added tax (VAT) on some unhealthy foods and a removal of the VAT on some healthy foods are investigated. Using censored quantile regressions, we reject equality of the own-price elasticities for eight of nine food and beverage groups. We find that a VAT increase is more effective in reducing purchases of unhealthy foods among high-purchasing households than a VAT removal is in increasing the purchases of healthy foods among low-purchasing households. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Norwegian obesity rates are on par with those of the other Nordic countries, and approximately 15-20% of Norwegians aged 40-45 are obese 1 Obesity leads to increased risk of diseases such as coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer (National Task Force on the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity, 2000). The costs associated with obesity have been estimated to be 0.5-1% of the gross domestic product (Departementene, 2007: 9), and most of those costs are paid publicly. These public costs may justify market interventions such as taxes on unhealthy foods and subsidies for healthy foods. 2 Food taxes and subsidies may also be motivated by people's self-control problems, as discussed by O'Donoghue and Rabin (2006). They argue that food taxes may help people who currently consume large quantities of food without considering the future health costs of such consumption. Furthermore, some studies suggest that certain foods that are high in sugar or fat content could be addictive for some people (e.g., 1 An adult with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 29.9 is considered to be overweight; an adult with a BMI of 30 or higher is considered to be obese. 2 The average household is likely to over-consume nutrients such as sugar and fats. We refer to energy-dense food and beverage groups with little nutritional value as unhealthy foods. However, it should be noted that for households who consume small quantities of these foods, an increased intake is not considered to be unhealthy. Food Policy 42 (2013) 88-9
