WHEN DO FAT TAXES INCREASE CONSUMER WELFARE?
提出一种简单方法来判断脂肪税是否让消费者受益，通过比较征税商品的支出与减重效果，发现对含糖饮料征税需要消费者愿意为每磅减重支付约1500美元才能提升福利，表明该税很难提高个人消费者福利。
Previous analyses of fat taxes have generally worked within an empirical framework in which it is difficult to determine whether consumers benefit from the policy. This note outlines on simple means to determine whether consumers benefit from a fat tax by comparing the ratio of expenditures on the taxed good to the weight effect of the tax against the individual's willingness to pay for a one-pound weight reduction. Our empirical calculations suggest that an individual would have to be willing to pay about $1500 to reduce weight by one pound for a tax on sugary beverages to be welfare enhancing. The results suggest either that a soda tax is very unlikely to increase individual consumer welfare or that the policy must be justified on some other grounds that abandon standard rationality assumptions.