Tag: Impact Analysis

A Potential Broadening of the Excise Tax on Food Products High in Sugar and Salt: The Case of Latvia

Posted on June 9, 2025 | Policy Brief

Woman holding a burger with fried chicken, donuts, and sugary foods – concept image for excise tax on sugar and salt.

Overweight and obesity are significant public health issues, contributing to various chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and certain cancers. Latvia’s second-highest share of overweight adults in the EU is a compelling reason for public health measures. These should aim to discourage excessive consumption of high-calorie foods and beverages. Excise tax is one of the tools in a complex approach to encourage a balanced diet and promote positive health outcomes. Motivated by evidence from Hungary, currently the only country in Europe imposing a tax on pre-packaged food products high in sugar and salt, we simulate the short-term impact of the introduction of a differentiated broad-based tax on food products in Latvia. We conclude that to influence consumer behaviour, price increases should be at least 10 percent, which implies introducing tax rates that are at least 1.5 times higher than those in Hungary.

Extremely High Overweight and Obesity Rates in Latvia

Overweight and obesity are serious public health challenges across Europe. Together with an unbalanced diet and low physical activity they contribute to many non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including heart diseases, diabetes and certain cancers (WHO, 2022). For many individuals, being overweight is also linked to psychological problems.

Overweight and obesity rates are extremely high in all EU countries. In 2022, more than half of all adults in the EU (51.3 percent) were overweight (including pre-obese and obese). Latvia has the 2nd highest rate of overweight adults in the EU (60.4 percent). This puts significant pressure on Latvia’s health care system and social resources.

Recognizing that overweight and obesity has multifactorial causes, a comprehensive approach is required to effectively tackle this problem, involving experts from various fields and addressing the issue from multiple angles.

One potential tool in a complex approach is an excise tax on foods and drinks high in sugar and salt since excessive consumption of such foods and drinks represents a major risk factor for NCDs (WHO, 2015a). Such a tax could help to reduce excessive consumption, encourage healthier eating, and improve public health outcomes.

The Intake of Added Sugars

According to data from the EFSA Panel on Nutrition, Novel Foods and Food Alergens (EFSA, 2022), the main source of added sugar intake in almost all European countries is sugar and confectionery. The numbers for adults (18–64 years) range from 20 percent in Austria to 57 percent in Italy (48 percent in Latvia). For children aged 1–18 years, sugar and confectionary contribute to 36 – 44 percent of added sugar intake in Latvia.

In Latvia, other key sources of added sugar are fine bakery wares, processed fruits, and vegetables. The contribution of sweetened soft and fruit drinks to total added sugar intake is only 8 percent for adults (18–64 years) and 3–7 percent for children (1–18 years).

Excise Tax on Soft Drinks

As of 2024, 14 European countries have implemented taxes on sugar-sweetened soft drinks. In Latvia, the tax was introduced in 1999 and was mainly motivated by the financial needs of the state budget.

The evidence from international case studies (WHO, 2023) shows that taxes on sugar-sweetened soft drinks can be effective in reducing consumption in the short term, particularly when the tax leads to significant price increases that reduce affordability. However, the overall evidence on whether these taxes successfully reduce sugar intake is inconclusive. In a review by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER, 2017), the authors conclude that methodologically robust studies  show only small reductions in sugar intake, too small to produce significant health benefits, and easily offset if consumers switch to other high-calorie products. On the other hand, studies reporting a meaningful change in sugar intake often assume no compensatory substitution. At the same time, experience from Hungary suggests that a sugar tax imposed on a wide range of products is effective in reducing the overall consumption of products subject to the tax, and in encouraging healthier consumption habits. The impact assessment conducted 3 years after the introduction of the tax in Hungary showed that consumers of unhealthy food products responded to the tax by choosing a cheaper, often healthier product (7–16 percent of those surveyed), consuming less of the unhealthy product (5–16 percent), switching to another brand of the product (5–11 percent), or substituting it with another food item – often a healthier alternative (WHO, 2015b).

The Short-term Effect of a Broad-Based Excise Tax in Latvia

Approach

Motivated by the evidence from Hungary, we simulate the short-term impact of the introduction of a similar differentiated broad-based tax on food products high in sugar and salt using the approach applied in Pļuta et. al (2020). First, we use AC Nielsen monthly data from 2019 to 2023 on sales volume and prices of pre-packaged food products of selected categories in the modern trade retail market to estimate the price elasticity of demand for these products. The selected product categories included:

  • Pre-packaged sweetened products (e.g., breakfast cereals, cacao, chocolate bars, soft and hard candies, sweet biscuits, etc.)
  • Sweetened dairy products (e.g., ice cream, yoghurt, condensed milk, curd countlines, etc.)
  • Salted snacks (salted nuts, salted biscuits, etc.)
  • Ready-to-eat and instant foods (e.g., pizza cooled and frozen, frozen dumplings, vegetables and canned beans, etc.)
  • Condiments (e.g., dehydrated instant and cooking culinary, dehydrated sauces and seasonings, dressings, ketchup, mayonnaise, etc.)

Second, we simulate different scenarios to assess the increase in price, reduction in sales and budgetary effect using the estimated elasticities and assuming different degrees of tax pass-through rate to retail prices (100 and 50 percent, respectively). Our results represent a short-term or direct fiscal effect, meaning we do not account for any second-round effects that may arise due to changes in domestic production and employment, which could in turn generate additional tax revenues.

The Tax Object and Rates

In defining the scenarios to be considered when modelling the potential broadening of the tax base, we use the Hungarian Public Health Product Tax (PHPT) as a practice example. As a basis, we use the list of product categories under taxation by the PHPT, the two-tier tax system and the PHPT rates as of 2024. In addition, we are also looking at other product categories (such as sugar sweetened dairy products, sweetened cereals and vegetables and beans containered), expanding the tax base even more. In total, we simulated four scenarios for taxing the food products high in sugar and salt. The scenarios consider a two-tier tax system, meaning products with lower sugar or salt content are taxed at a lower rate, while those with higher content face a higher tax. For condiments, only a high rate is applied due to the, usually high, salt content. A differentiated tax rate is expected to stimulate the industry to drive down sugar and salt content in their products, i.e., offering sugar and salt-reduced options. The scenarios differ from each other in the applicable rates.

  • Scenario 1: Uses the same tax rates as Latvia’s excise tax on non-alcoholic beverages (as of March 2024) – EUR 7.40 per 100 kg (low rate) and EUR 17.50 per 100 kg (high rate).
  • Scenario 2: Uses Hungary’s PHPT rates – in the general case, the low rate is EUR 17 per 100 kg, and the high rate is EUR 54 per 100 kg.
  • Scenario 3: Sets rates 1.5 times higher than Hungary’s rates.
  • Scenario 4: Doubles Hungary’s rates.

Assumptions

Unfortunately, the retail price and sales time series used in the analysis are not disaggregated into groups according to the sugar and salt content in the product. As a result, we apply assumptions to estimate the potential range of tax impacts.

To calculate the lower bound of the expected impact, we assume that 100 percent of sales in each product category are subject to the new sugar and salt tax, but all products have low sugar and salt content and therefore qualify for the lower tax rate.

To calculate the upper bound, we assume that 25 percent of the sales volume is taxed at the lower rate (due to low sugar and salt content), while the remaining 75 percent of sales are taxed at the higher rate, reflecting higher sugar and salt levels in those products.

Results

According to our estimations, the application of an excise tax on food products high in sugar and salt could lead to a price increase and sales decrease of taxed food products. The magnitude would depend on the type of food product (i.e., average retail price in the country) and scenario assumed (i.e., tax rates). Within each single scenario, the largest impact is expected for condiments. This is because we simulate only the high tax rate applied to them (not a two-tier system), as is the case in Hungary. The tax makes up a larger share of their price, and due to high price sensitivity, the decrease in sales is also greater.

Based on previous research, we conclude that price increases need to reach at least 10 percent to meaningfully influence consumer behaviour. This level of change is achieved in Scenario 3, which assumes tax rates 1.5 times higher than those used in Hungary.

Below we present the obtained estimations under Scenario 3.  The estimates for Scenarios 1 and 2 are not included here because the price increase caused by the tax does not reach 10 percent for several product categories. Under Scenario 4 the price changes could exceed 10 percent but this scenario may also provide stronger incentives for manufacturers to reformulate their products (and in this case, the average price increase within a given product category will be lower). The results for Scenario 4 are available in a recent BICEPS report (Pļuta et al., 2024).

Under Scenario 3, with full tax pass-through (100 percent), the estimated reduction in sales volume is:

  • 0–8.1 percent for pre-packaged sweetened products;
  • 6–17.1 percent for sweetened dairy products;
  • 9–4.7 percent for salted snacks;
  • 4–54.1 percent for ready-to-eat and instant foods;
  • 0–11.8 percent for condiments.

If only 50 percent of the tax is passed through to retail prices, the sales reductions would be approximately half as big.

The estimated revenue from the excise tax in this scenario would range between EUR 15.0 million and EUR 54.9 million. The resulting change in VAT revenue would range from a loss of EUR 0.7 million to a gain of EUR 1.1 million.

Conclusion

Although overweight and obesity rates are extremely high in all EU countries, Latvia, in 2022, had the second highest rate in the EU. In this brief, we explore the use of the excise tax as one of the tools in a complex approach to discourage excessive consumption of foods and beverages high in sugar and salt and encourage a balanced diet and promote positive health outcomes. Based on findings from previous studies, a price increase of at least 10 percent is needed to influence consumer behaviour. In Latvia, this would require tax rates approximately 1.5 times higher than those applied in Hungary, i.e. in the general case equal to EUR 25.5 (low rate) and EUR 81 (high rate) per 100 kg of product. Under such a scenario, the estimated revenue from the tax could range from EUR 15.0 to 54.9 million. For comparison, in 2024, Latvia’s excise tax on soft drinks generated EUR 15.6 million. To remain effective, tax rates should be adjusted over time in line with growth in disposable income.

Acknowledgement

This brief is based on a study Taxation of the non-alcoholic beverages with excise tax in the Baltic countries. Potential broadening of the tax base to food products high in sugar and salt completed by BICEPS researchers in 2024 (Pļuta et al., 2024). The study was commissioned by VA Government. It was developed independently and reflects only the views of the authors.

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Does Foreign Aid Foster Female Empowerment?

Posted on October 16, 2023 | Policy Brief

20231009 Foreign Aid Female Empowerment Image 01

Over decades much attention has been devoted to the relationship between foreign aid and economic growth, while few studies have focused on the effects of foreign aid on female empowerment. This despite the fact that empowerment of girls and women is a key driver of development, and often an explicit objective of foreign aid. Using geo-coded data on aid project placement and household-level survey responses, Perrotta Berlin, Bonnier and Olofsgård (2023), show that foreign aid has a modest but robust effect on several dimensions of female empowerment. This is the case for both aid in general and gender-targeted aid, highlighting the potential of foreign aid to reduce gender inequalities. It is also found, though, that the impact is contingent on the context, and that there can even be a backlash in male attitudes towards female empowerment in more traditional communities.

The donor community has long been invested in the empowerment of women and girls, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development also includes gender equality as an explicit goal. Yet surprisingly little quantitative research has tried to make a broader assessment of the effect of foreign aid on gender equality measures.

This policy brief summarises a study by Perrotta Berlin, Bonnier and Olofsgård (2023) which addresses this question by matching the location of aid projects with geo-coded household surveys in Malawi between 2004 and 2010. Analysing the community-level impact on five different female empowerment indices, the study finds foreign aid to affect positively women’s empowerment across several dimensions. Furthermore, the authors find that gender-targeted aid has an additional impact on an index measuring women’s control over sexuality and fertility-related decisions and an index focusing on violence against women.

When considering areas with patrilineal land inheritance traditions, the results however partly shift, especially in relation to men’s attitudes. This implies that the success of foreign aid and gender-targeted aid in reducing gender inequalities may be conditional on the community context.

Gender Equality and Foreign Aid in Malawi

Malawi is highly dependent on foreign aid. Net official development assistance (ODA) has exceeded 10 percent of gross national income yearly since 1975, reaching as high as 23.5 percent in 2016 (World Bank, WDI database).

In recent years, reforms have been undertaken by the Malawian government to improve gender equality. The minimum legal age of marriage was raised from 15 to 18 through the 2015 Marriage, Divorce and Family Relations Bill, and the 2013 Gender Equality Act strengthened the legislation concerning gender-based violence and included a universal condemnation of all types of gender-based discrimination. Yet, in 2020, Malawi was ranked 116 out of 153 in the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report and 172 out of 189 in UNDP’s Gender Inequality Index. An area of concern regards the high rates of child marriage, with 9 percent of girls already married at age 15 and 42 percent by the age of 18. Alongside these numbers, 31 percent of women report to have given birth by the age 18.

Another aspect potentially influencing gender equality is the prevalence of matrilinear land tenure systems, particularly in the southern and central parts of the country (as depicted in Figure 1). While previous research has shown that land ownership empowers women and suggested that property rights affect decision power over key decisions, fertility preferences, age of marriage etc., less research has been devoted to analysing the effects on women’s empowerment outcomes in a matrilinear kinship setting. Some recent literature however suggests women in matrilinear societies have greater say in household decisions – including financial ones – and are less accepting of, as well as exposed to, domestic violence (Lowes, 2021; Djurfeldt et al., 2018).

Figure 1. Intensity of matrilineal tenure in Malawi.

Notes: The figure plots the geographic distribution of the authors’ matrilineal indicator. They base their definition of matrilineal societies on the ethnic identification of individual respondents. The intensity at the cluster level varies between 0 and 1 representing the share of respondents that identify themselves as belonging to one of the ethnic groups classified as matrilineal.
Source: Perrotta Berlin, Bonnier, Olosgård (2023).

Methodology and Data

For the analysis, the authors make use of geo-coded data on aid projects from the Government of Malawi’s Aid Management Platform (AMP) and match it to household-level data from the Malawi Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). The country of Malawi and the period 2004-2010 were chosen in order to maximize data coverage on aid disbursement. Malawi’s AMP covers 80 percent of all aid entering the country during those years, which gives a much more complete picture compared to only focusing on one specific donor.

To identify causal impact, the authors apply a difference-in-differences specification on survey clusters in proximity to aid projects implemented between 2004 and 2010. Proximity was identified as within a 10-kilometer radius from an aid project. Among those, households interviewed in 2004, i.e., prior to the implementation date of any aid project, were considered the control group, and households interviewed in 2010 formed the treatment group. The underlying assumption of parallel pre-treatment trends was confirmed with the use of earlier DHS surveys. The model specification includes individual-level controls (age, ethnicity, household size, a Muslim dummy, years of education and literacy) and also a geographic fixed-effect based on a grid of coordinates.

The analysis distinguishes between the impact of aid in general, and the additional impact of gender-targeted aid.  Gender-targeted projects are defined as projects that have any of the words woman, girl, bride, maternal, gender, genital or child, in the title, description or activity list. When estimating the effect of gender-targeted aid the authors control for overall aid intensity in the household’s vicinity. The estimated effect should therefore be interpreted as the additional effect from being exposed to a gender-targeted aid project while keeping the general number of aid projects in the area constant.

Figure 2. Map of aid projects and household clusters from 2004 and 2010 survey waves in Malawi.

Notes: The figure plots the geographic distribution of aid projects and of household clusters in the two DHS waves. The colour of the dots reflects whether the project has a gender component or not, while the shape of the household dot reflects the survey wave.
Source: Perrotta Berlin, Bonnier, Olofsgård (2023).

To capture female empowerment, the authors make use of thousands of responses to DHS survey waves from 2004 and 2010. From these responses, the authors construct four different indices. Two of these are modelled on indices used in different contexts by Haushofer and Shapiro (2016) and Jayachandran et al. (2023). The former captures experiences of violence together with men’s and women’s attitudes towards violence, and some measures of decision making and control over household resources. The more recent index by Jayachandran et al. (2023) focuses on female agency and includes questions on women’s participation in decisions on large household purchases and daily expenditures, decisions on family visits, and decisions concerning their own healthcare.

To also capture questions related to sexual and fertility preferences, often regarded as measures of female empowerment, the authors construct two additional indices. The women’s attitudes index is based on responses to questions about whether the respondent is able to refuse sexual intercourse with her husband and ask him to use a condom, age at first marriage, and age at first childbirth, among others. The men’s attitudes index is based on questions about whether the respondent thinks it is justified to use violence to force intercourse, if a woman is justified to refuse intercourse, as well as fertility and child spacing preferences. In addition, all four indices are weighted and combined into an aggregated general index.

Results

Considering all aid projects, the authors find that being exposed to an aid project in the 2004 to 2010 window has a significant positive impact on the agency index, the female attitude index and the combined general index (12, 11 and 31 percent of their respective means). When considering gender-targeted aid, the authors found the exposure to at least one such project to increase the women’s attitude index by 7 percent and the general index by 17 percent of their respective means. The impact is present for both a narrower and a wider exposure area, and quite persistent over time.

When breaking down the analysis for areas with matrilineal versus patrilineal land tenure systems the results diverge. In communities where the share of matrilineal ethnic groups exceeds the mean of 73 percent, the results are largely in line with those in the full sample. In patrilineal communities (< 73 percent matrilineal households), the results are however vastly different. Aid projects in general, and gender-targeted aid in particular, affect negatively the men’s attitudes index. In addition, gender-targeted aid seems to have no additional impact on the other indices.

Conclusion

In the paper underlying this brief, the authors study the effect of foreign aid on female empowerment, a frequent but understudied objective often set by donors. Looking at geo-coded aid projects in Malawi, the authors estimated such projects to positively impact girl’s and women’s empowerment across several indices. This is true for aid in general, and for some indices even more so when considering gender-targeted aid. Some of the positive results disappear or even change sign, though, in patrilineal communities, displaying the significance of pre-existing community norms for the effectiveness of development investments. Aid even generates a backlash when it comes to men’s attitudes towards women’s sexual and fertility preferences in these communities.

The takeaway from the study lies in foreign aid’s potential to empower women in targeted communities. This however hinges on pre-existing norms in recipient communities – something that aid donors should be aware of.

The authors emphasize the need for more research to better understand the role of pre-existing norms in the uptake of aid, to distinguish direct effects from aid from potential spillovers, and to understand what type of aid projects deliver the best outcomes in terms of female empowerment.

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.