Obesity and the Rationale of the Fat-tax

对付肥胖的问题,需要仔细检查税收工作的假设机制和这些假设的可能性。肥胖在世界的许多地方,在历史上意味着舒适的生活。但今天就变为为一个社会问题。下面的paper代写范文进行论述。

Introduction 
  Taxes have long ago officially lost their purely fiscal importance, and instead came to be understood as a means of achieving non-fiscal goals of those empowered to impose them. Recently, in many developed countries, policy-makers have proposed installing a tax on foodstuffs – a “fat-tax” – to address the issue of obesity. We think it therefore worthwhile to look into the logic of this proposal and find out what the possible merits of it are. The goal of this study is to judge whether the fat tax is a suitable means for dealing with the much-discussed “obesity epidemic”. In order to undertake this task, we must examine the nature of the problem and assess how effectively, and at what cost, could the fat-tax contribute to its solution. 

  The second part of this study examines the background of the fat-tax proposal: the issue of obesity, and reasons for making it a subject of public policy. In the third part, we focus more closely upon the logic through which tax is supposed to deal with the problem of obesity, closely examining the assumptions that are required for the mechanism of the tax to work and the likelihood that these assumptions are (or will be) in fact met. The second part of the same section addresses the costs of the prospective tax. After adding another argument against the fat-tax in the fourth section, we will be able, in the final section, to derive a conclusion as to the desirability of its imposition.

 Obesity and the Rationale of the Fat-tax 
  Obesity – a state of being overweight in terms generally acknowledged criteria1 – has been around from time immemorial. Being fat was in a many parts of the world and in many times in history an indication of a comfortable life and welfare. Such sentiments are even surviving to this day in the form of vernacular expressions like “you look good and well fed” or “what is wrong with you, you look so skinny”. Due to available statistics on body weight, one can spot a trend towards rising average weight and, its corollary, greater obesity rates. 

  This seems to be a world-wide phenomenon,2 manifesting itself even on the African continent, traditionally considered a nutritionally deficient area. Contrary to the attitude of our ancestors, this development is generally seen as retrogression, and a modern pandemic that needs to be addressed somehow. It is pointed out that obesity entails increased health risks (diabetes, various heart diseases, hypertension, asthma, impairment of locomotive organs or even cancer) and negative aesthetic impact upon one’s appearance (associated with difficult socialization), both resulting in substantial social cost. Yet, economically speaking, the need for action is in no way a crystal-clear conclusion. The fact that there are more and more people whose weight falls into the category of being obese is not by itself a reason for any action, let alone any action on the part of public authorities. 

  This is so for the same reason why any other rising (or falling, for that matter) figure in statistical data about population does not constitute a case for intervention. As long as the weight data describe the consequences of voluntary choices of individuals, the prima facie assumption is simple: it is a state of affairs that people demonstrably prefer to other available alternatives. This conclusion is supported by the nature of causes of obesity, which are perfectly well accepted by the advocates of the fat-tax: greater calorie input than output, resulting in an accumulation of fat in the body.3 Admittedly, there are substantial physiological differences among people as to the way the calorie input is turned into output (i.e. differences in metabolism). 

  But as there is no reason to suppose that these, largely genetically determined, traits change in time (let alone change in such fashion as to worsen the metabolism and worsen it so fast), it must be concluded that the observed rising obesity rates are a consequence of a change in human behavior. Whatever the particular instances of that behavior – dietary habits, working conditions, leisure activities – it always comes down to a voluntary choice of that course of action. Thus, obesity is not like a natural disaster – a hurricane or flood – that comes unsolicited. Though widely considered a disease and epidemic,4 it is a kind of disease that cannot spread in any other way but through adopting certain kinds of behavior. 

  In short, what seems to be the overwhelming case is that people make choices in favor of a more comfortable and satiating life at the cost of some additional health problems and the reality suggests that so far the benefits are generally deemed to outweigh the cost. If this is the case then there is no need for considering obesity a problem and putting it on the agenda of public authorities. Indeed, there seems to be an inherent contradiction lying right at the very root of the whole reasoning in favor of the tax: obesity is either determined by lifestyle people choose to live, but then it does not constitute a problem that needs solving. Or it is indeed a disease, independent of human behavior, but then it cannot be addressed by a tax! Either way, the fat-tax appears unsubstantiated and unjustifiable. 

  As far as economics is concerned, this conclusion can be attacked (and a case for intervention resumed) only on the ground of some type of a market failure. Two most plausible claims of market failure are the information failure and external cost. Let us now look at both of these arguments in more detail.

 Information failure 
  One can easily argue that the trade-off of a more comfortable life for higher health risks and shorter life is a choice that is being made by imperfectly informed individuals. Hence, their choice might be distorted and suboptimal. Such claim, however, proves too much. Surely, individuals are generally not experts when it comes to nutrition, metabolism, physical exercise and all the other  fields that one would need to master in order to make a perfectly informed decision – in fact, it would be truly impossible to find a single individual able to make such decision. But the same holds by and large for any other choices people make. And as routine, frequent and important as such choices are, they are generally not subject to an extra remedial intervention on the part of government. Thus, in order to substantiate the case for such intervention, one would have to provide reasons to believe that the information deficit on the part of the decisionmakers causes their decisions to be biased. Namely, one would have to show that decision-makers systematically over-rate benefits and under-rate cost of having a surplus in overall energy balance.

 External Cost 
  Another route that is likely to be taken to provide economic justification of the fat-tax is to invoke the standard externality argument. It may be asserted that when people decide over their lifestyle they do not take into account all cost associated with their actions. Namely, part of the health-care cost increased due to unhealthy lifestyle is born by community. Consequently, the private cost of the decision-makers appears to be lower than it really is and their choice is thus distorted and suboptimal. Arguments of this kind surely merit some consideration. It must be fully admitted that a system in which people do not bear the whole cost of the health-care services they claim causes all individuals generally to behave less responsibly with respect to their health than they otherwise would. The reason for this is that the system makes it less costly to them to engage in potentially healthdetrimental activities. And these of course include habits conducive to obesity: there are good reasons to suppose that people eat more, and exercise less, than they would if they had to bear the whole cost of their health care. Economically speaking, their lifestyle choice is indeed distorted with the result of people being more obese than they otherwise would have been. Though individually rational, the community as a whole is worse off under such circumstances as it has to carry the burden of external costs that individuals failed to incorporate into their decisionmaking.

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