Regressive Sin Taxes with an Application to the Optimal Soda Tax with Dmitry Taubinsky

In this episode, we talk to Dmitry Taubinsky from the University of California Berkeley about his paper “Regressive Sin Taxes, with an Application to the Optimal Soda Tax,” which he co-authored with Hunt Allcott and Benjamin B. Lockwood. This paper develops a theoretical model of an optimal “sin tax” i.e., a tax on goods that are considered harmful to consume. The theoretical framework is then applied to estimate the optimal soda tax.