Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Food is a fundamental part of our life and the relationship we have with it shapes our overall wellbeing. From the social dimensions, to the physical and psychological one, everything depends by our health, and our health is directly linked with what we eat.
The contemporary food environment has been defined as the ‘eat more’ environment. As a matter of fact, it offers cheap, nutritionally low food while promoting overeating. To improve the overall wellbeing of people it is important to understand why this is the current food environment and how to contrast it. There are different measures implemented at the societal level, by the Governments, to improve the health of people. There are both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ measures. The most implemented ‘hard’ measures are taxes and regulations that increase the price of foods and push producers to reformulate the nutritionally low, ultra processed food.
One of the most discussed measures is the sugar-tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. This product, particularly detrimental for the health, is terribly consumed. Many Countries have a sugar tax. Sweden, although the high consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, has never implemented such a measure. Thus, its analysis is fascinating.
In this thesis, I analysed the impact that a hypothetical sugar tax would have on the consumption of SSBs among Swedish consumers. The work was carried out through the study of the scanner data of the ICA Maxi located in Nacka, east of Stockholm. The data was analysed using the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System model, through the estimation of the Expenditure, Marshallian and Hicksian elasticities. Different trials with different tax rates have been tested. All the different tax rates show a decline in the consumption of the taxed products. As is it logical, the higher the price increase, the larger the reduction in demand. However, the results of this analysis are modest. As a matter of fact, the 20% tax determines a decrease in the consumption of SSBs by -2.29%, highlighting the need to combine different measures to really change the food consumption patterns of Swedes.