Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/82237 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2012:10
Publisher: 
Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU), Uppsala
Abstract: 
This paper studies the cross-border health and productivity effects of alcohol taxes. We estimate the effect of a large cut in the Finnish alcohol tax on mortality, alcohol related illnesses and work absenteeism in Sweden. This tax cut led to large differences in the prices of alcoholic beverages between these two countries and to a considerable increase in cross-border shopping. The effect is identified using differences-in-differences strategy where changes in these outcomes in regions near the Finnish border are compared to changes in other parts of northern Sweden. We use register data where micro level data on deaths, hospitalisations and absenteeism is merged to population-wide micro data on demographics and labour market outcomes. Our results on the effect of the Finnish tax cut on mortality and alcohol-related hospitalisations in Sweden are very imprecise. However, we find that workplace absenteeism increased by 5% for males and by 13% for females near the Finnish border as a result of the tax cut.
Subjects: 
Cross-border shopping
Alcohol taxes
Health effects of alcohol
JEL: 
H23
H73
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
310.49 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.