Study queStionWhat has been the effect on purchases of beverages from stores in Mexico one year after implementation of the excise tax on sugar sweetened beverages?

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In the first year of a 1 peso per liter excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, there was a 6% reduction in purchases of taxed beverages in Mexico. This paper estimates changes in beverage purchases two years after tax implementation. We used household store purchase data for 6,645 households from January 2012 to December 2015. Changes in purchases of taxed and untaxed beverages in the post-tax years were estimated using two separate models: comparing 2014 with predicted volumes (counterfactual) based on pre-tax (2012-2013) trends, and comparing 2015 with the same counterfactual. Purchases of taxed beverages decreased by 8.2% over the two years on average (-5.5% in 2014; -9.7% in 2015). The lowest socioeconomic group had the largest decreases in taxed beverages in both years. Untaxed beverage purchases increased 2.1% in the post-tax period. In Mexico, lower purchases of taxed beverages was sustained and grew in the second year of the tax.

Background Chile's Law of Food Labeling and Advertising, implemented in 2016, was the first national regulation to jointly mandate front-of-package warning labels, restrict child-directed marketing, and ban sales in schools of all foods and beverages containing added sugars, sodium, or saturated fats that exceed set nutrient or calorie thresholds. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of this package of policies on household beverage purchases. Method and findings In this observational study, monthly longitudinal data on packaged beverage purchases were collected from urban-dwelling households (n = 2,383) participating in the Kantar Word-Panel Chile Survey from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2017. Beverage purchases were linked to nutritional information at the product level, reviewed by a team of nutritionists, and categorized as "high-in" or "not high-in" according to whether they contained high levels of nutrients of concern (i.e., sugars, sodium, saturated fat, or energy) according to Chilean nutrient thresholds and were thus subject to the law's warning label, marketing restriction, and school sales ban policies. The majority of high-in beverages were categorized as such because of high sugar content. We used fixed-effects models to compare the observed volume as well as calorie and sugar content of postregulation beverage purchases to a counterfactual based on preregulation trends, overall and by household-head educational attainment. Of households included in the study, 37% of household heads had low education (less than high school), 40% had medium education (graduated high school), and 23% had high education (graduated college), with the sample becoming more educated over the study period. Compared to the counterfactual, the volume of high-in beverage purchases decreased 22.8 mL/capita/day, postregulation (95% confidence interval [CI] −22.9 to −22.7;

In January 2014, Mexico implemented a tax on sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) purchases of 1 peso/L. We examined the heterogeneity of changes in nonalcoholic beverage (SSB and bottled water) purchases after the tax was implemented by household income, urban and rural strata, and household composition. We used 4 rounds of the National Income and Expenditure Surveys: 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014. Changes in purchases in per capita liters per week were estimated with the use of 2-part models to adjust for nonpurchases. We compared absolute and relative differences between adjusted changes in observed purchases in 2014 with expected purchases in 2014 based on prior trends (2008-2012). The models were adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics of the households, place of residence, and lagged gross domestic product per capita. We found a 6.3% reduction in the observed purchases of SSBs in 2014 compared with the expected purchases in that same year based on trends from 2008 to 2012. These reductions were higher among lower-income households, residents living in urban areas, and households with children. We also found a 16.2% increase in water purchases that was higher in low- and middle-income households, in urban areas, and among households with adults only. SSB purchases decreased and water purchases increased after an SSB tax was imposed in Mexico. The magnitude of these changes was greater in lower-income and urban households.

A large and growing body of scientific evidence demonstrates that sugar drinks are harmful to health. Intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) is a risk factor for obesity and type 2 diabetes. Mexico has one of the largest per capita consumption of soft drinks worldwide and high rates of obesity and diabetes. Fiscal approaches such as taxation have been recommended as a public health policy to reduce SSB consumption. We estimated an almost ideal demand system with linear approximation for beverages and high-energy food by simultaneous equations and derived the own and cross price elasticities for soft drinks and for all SSB (soft drinks, fruit juices, fruit drinks, flavored water and energy drinks). Models were stratified by income quintile and marginality index at the municipality level. Price elasticity for soft drinks was -1.06 and -1.16 for SSB, i.e., a 10% price increase was associated with a decrease in quantity consumed of soft drinks by 10.6% and 11.6% for SSB. A price increase in soft drinks is associated with larger quantity consumed of water, milk, snacks and sugar and a decrease in the consumption of other SSB, candies and traditional snacks. The same was found for SSB except that an increase in price of SSB was associated with a decrease in snacks. Higher elasticities were found among households living in rural areas (for soft drinks), in more marginalized areas and with lower income. Implementation of a tax to soft drinks or to SSB could decrease consumption particularly among the poor. Substitutions and complementarities with other food and beverages should be evaluated to assess the potential impact on total calories consumed.

In 2014 an excise tax to non-alcoholic sweetened beverages (SSB) was implemented in Mexico. The objective of this paper is to study whether and to what degree these taxes passed-through onto SSB prices in urban areas overall and by region, type of beverage and package size. Prices were obtained from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography from 2011 to 2014. We applied a pre-post quasi-experimental approach using fixed effects models. In sensitivity analysis we applied other model specifications to test the robustness of the findings and we also present weighted estimations based on household purchases. The dependent variables are real prices of a specific beverage category; the main independent variables are dummies for each month of 2014, and the models adjust for time trends and seasonality. Results suggest that the SSB tax passed along to consumers for all SSBs and we found overshifting for the carbonated SSBs. A greater effect is seen among the small package sizes, and we see heterogeneous effects by region. Estimating the effect of the tax on prices is important to understand the potential effect on consumption.

ObjectiveTo estimate changes in sales of sugar sweetened beverages (SSB) and plain water after a 1 peso per liter excise SSB tax was implemented in Mexico in January 2014.Material and MethodsWe used sales data from the Monthly Surveys of the Manufacturing Industry from January 2007 to December 2015. We estimated Ordinary Least Squares models to assess changes in per capita sales of SSB and plain water adjusting for seasonality and the global indicator of economic activity.ResultsWe found a decrease of 7.3% in per capita sales of SSB and an increase of 5.2% of per capita sales of plain water in 2014–2015 compared to the pre-tax period (2007–2013).ConclusionsAdjusting for variables that change over time and that are associated with the demand for SSB, we found the tax was associated with a reduction in per capita sales of SSB. The effectiveness of the tax should be evaluated in the medium and long term.