La taxation nutritionnelle comme outil de santé publique : justifications et effets attendus

This article surveys the economic literature about fiscal food policies, illustrating the main issues by empirical results about the taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages. The analysis of historical trends clearly reveals the associations between food prices and the average quality of population diet. The implementation of a nutritional tax may then be motivated by consumer protection or by health overspendings for Social Security. However, consumers are able to substitute between many food products, and producers are free to change the price and the quality of the supply; Hence, any taxation scheme may be defeated by market reactions. The behavioral and health impact of a nutritional tax should thus be low, at least at conventional levels of taxation (between 5 and 20%). A fiscal food policy remains however a good means of collecting revenues. The latter should ideally be earmarked to fund specific programs of promotion of nutritional health in order to get people's support.