Tobacconomics, a grant-funded research initiative of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), welcomes five new research partners to build the evidence base for effective tobacco tax policies in low- and middle-income countries. The new partners include: the Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives (CISDI) in Jakarta, Indonesia; the Ark Foundation in Dhaka, Bangladesh; Centro de Investigación Económica y Presupuestaria (CIEP) in Mexico City, Mexico; Universidade Católica de Brasília (UCB) in Brasilia, Brazil; and El Centro de Estudios Distributivos Laborales y Sociales Argentina (CEDLAS) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In addition to the new partnerships, Tobacconomics is also pleased to announce the continuing work with partners from the Americas, South and Southeast Asia, and the Southeastern Europe regions. Read More
Some of the best moments of our work are those where we have the opportunity to meet with our partners face-to-face and see them present their research to a broader audience. A few weeks ago at the 11th Vietnam Economists Annual Meeting (VEAM)—hosted by our partner in Vietnam, DEPOCEN—we were able to do just that. Read More
In 2012, the Philippines enacted one of the most significant tobacco tax reforms in history. The Sin Tax Reform Act (STL) reformed the tobacco excise tax system by replacing its four-tier system of taxation with a uniform specific tax on all cigarette brands of 30 PHP per pack by 2017. This meant that the previous tax rates of 2.72 PHP per pack of cigarettes on low- and medium-priced brands and 12 pesos on premium brands all shifted to 30 PHP—amounting to more than a 1000% tax increase on the cheapest brands. Read More
In an effort to raise awareness about the negative consequences of smoking tobacco products, the World Health Organization (WHO), along with many other global partners, celebrates World No Tobacco Day every year on May 31st. This year, the theme is tobacco and lung health. In today’s blog, we’re expanding the campaign’s primary focus area—the negative impact smoking has on lung health—to look at economic burden of tobacco-related lung disease, and how fiscal policy tools, such as taxation can help reduce smoking rates and thus, tobacco-related lung disease. Read More
The last stop on our research tour is Dhaka, Bangladesh. On April 7th, one of our think tank partners in Bangladesh, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), hosted a workshop for policy makers, the media, academics and civil society stakeholders about their research on the economics of tobacco taxation in the country. Read More
This is an episode in the series, 'Upstream Public Health,' from the Thinking Upstream podcast. In this episode, Frank Chaloupka discusses the economics of tobacco taxes. Read More
The next stop on our research tour is Bucharest, Romania. From March 27-29th Tobacconomics team members participated in the 4th International Conference of the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP). There, we were joined by seven of our think tank partners in the Southeastern Europe (SEE) consortium, which is led by the Institute of Economic Sciences (IES) in Belgrade, Serbia. Read More
Last week, we took you along with us on our trip to Karachi, Pakistan, for SPDC’s seminar on the “Macroeconomic Impacts of Tobacco Use in Pakistan.” This week, we will be discussing a recent event organized by our partner, Prakarsa, in Jakarta, Indonesia, held on March 27th. The purpose of this meeting was to launch and present their new research: “The Illicit Cigarette Trade in Indonesia.” We are excited to disseminate these noteworthy findings, so let’s begin! Read More
During the month of April, we’ll be taking a world tour of recent research in Pakistan; Indonesia; Romania; Chile; and Bangladesh—all delivered by Tobacconomics think tank partners. In last month’s series, we explored our approach to think tank capacity building through a series of blogs. This month, we’ll be sharing the proof of concept to highlight several dissemination events that have taken place in the last several weeks. Let’s begin in Karachi! Read More
Over the past three weeks, we have taken to our blog to reflect on our first two years of the think tank capacity building project, “Accelerating Progress on Tobacco Taxes in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.” In this series, we have defined our purpose and direction for think tank capacity building. A few questions we initially asked ourselves were: Why capacity building? What capacities are we seeking to build? The answers to those questions lay the foundation to formulate our purpose and six core competencies of analysis in the economics of tobacco control. Read More
