Lessons from Berkeley’s Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Election and Tax

Scott Kaplan, Rebecca Taylor, and Sofia B. Villas-Boas
from ARE Update Vol. 22, No. 4, Mar/Apr, 2019
View Article PDF: Lessons from Berkeley’s Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Election and Tax
Abstract
In 2014, Berkeley passed the nation’s first sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) tax, also known as a soda tax, through a public vote. Using sales data from Berkeley retailers, we find that sales of soda fell relative to non-SSB beverages by 10–20% after the election outcome and before the tax was ever passed on to consumers. Our findings suggest soda tax media coverage and election outcomes can have larger effects on purchasing behavior than the tax itself.
Keywords
Social norms, externalities, local elections
Citation
Scott Kaplan, Rebecca Taylor, and Sofia B. Villas-Boas. 2019. "Lessons from Berkeley’s Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Election and Tax." ARE Update 22(4): 9-11. University of California Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics.
https://giannini.ucop.edu/filer/file/1555356932/19055/