Fiscal policy and health related behaviours

This chapter addresses the evidence concerning the impact that fiscal policy has on health behaviour and the relative effectiveness of fiscal policy and other interventions. The evidence will be set out first for the case of tobacco control and will consider results from the literature and the application of fiscal policy in the UK. This will address questions relating to the impact of fiscal policy on overall smoking prevalence and on socio-economic inequalities in smoking prevalence. This example will then be compared with the situation relating to alcohol and other health behaviours. Before turning to the evidence, the following sections consider the theoretical basis for fiscal interventions and how evidence of the effectiveness and efficiency of such interventions is generated.