Welcome to Economics for Health, the new name for Tobacconomics, an international team of researchers dedicated to producing
rigorous economic evidence that helps to address public health challenges like tobacco use, alcohol use, and more, based
at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Over the past three weeks, we have taken to our blog to reflect on our first two years of the think tank capacity building project, “Accelerating Progress on Tobacco Taxes in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.” In this series, we have defined our purpose and direction for think tank capacity building. A few questions we initially asked ourselves were: Why capacity building? What capacities are we seeking to build? The answers to those questions lay the foundation to formulate our purpose and six core competencies of analysis in the economics of tobacco control. Read More
If you are a new reader to this series, we have already released the first two blogs: the ‘what’ and ‘why’, and the ‘who’, ‘where’, and ‘how’ on our approach to think tank capacity building. We discussed our reasoning for capacity building in the first place, what capacities we sought to build, and our scoping process in finding the think tank partners we work with today on the project, “Accelerating Progress on Tobacco Taxes in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.” In this blog, we will be discussing our research process: how we worked with partners and sought input from policy makers and advocates to identify evidence gaps, selected research topics, assessed data availability and training needs, and ensured quality research and timely delivery—all with the goal of increasing evidence-based policymaking on tobacco taxation. Read More
Last week, we released the first blog in this series about Tobacconomics’ approach to think tank capacity-building describing the “why” and the “what.” This week, we will be discussing our scoping process, and how we found the right partners. In other words, the “who” “where” and “how.” But first, a bit more about the aims of our project. Read More
New research from Pakistan- and Southeastern Europe-based think tanks find that tobacco taxation increases can reduce tobacco consumption and at the same time increase government revenues in the regions. Read More
During the month of March, we’ll be sharing a series of blogs to explain the think tank capacity building project: “Accelerating Progress on Tobacco Taxes in Low? and Middle?Income Countries,” which is funded through the Bloomberg Initiative To Reduce Tobacco Use. You can find a summary of the project here on the Tobacconomics website, but in short, this project aims to build the capacity of economic and fiscal policy think tanks to produce and disseminate high-quality research on the economics of tobacco taxation. We began the project two years ago and in that time, we have established partnerships with 22 think tanks in 17 countries. This series of blogs will explain the “who, what, when, where, why and how” of our team’s approach to capacity building on the economics of tobacco control, including our ‘core competencies’ model, the scoping process, research process and results thus far, lessons learned from our first grant cycle, and lastly, future work. Read More
A new special collection of PLOS ONE, “Economic Cases for NCD Prevention and Control: A Global Perspective,” edited by Rachel Nugent (RTI International), Muhammad Jami Hussein (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and Tobacconomics Director, Frank Chaloupka, was launched at the annual Prince Mahidol Award Conference in Bangkok this week. Read More
Pakistan’s tobacco tax structure has undergone many changes in the past decade. Prior to 2013, the country had a highly complex three-tier Federal Excise Duty (FED) on cigarettes, with specific taxes on lower brands, ad-valorem taxes on premium brands levied as a percentage of retail price, and a combination of the two on medium brands. The tax structure was simplified in 2013, abolishing the ad-valorem component, making it a two-tier system instead. However, in 2017, a third tier was again introduced. At the 34th Annual Conference of the Pakistan Society of Development Economics last month, UIC think tank partners, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) and the Social Policy and Development Centre (SPDC), launched two new research reports that make the case for a more simplified tobacco tax structure in Pakistan. Read More
Culminating a year-long investigation of tobacco taxation and its impact on consumer behaviors in the SEE region, Tobacconomics think tank partners in the region from Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia met in Belgrade with policy makers and public health advocates from the region to present their breakthrough findings and recommendations. Read More
Last month in Belgrade, Serbia, the Tobacconomics team joined with think tank partners in the region to discuss ongoing research on the impacts of tax and demand for tobacco products. The meeting was hosted by the Institute for Economic Sciences and included consortium members from Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. Read More
Last week at the Mercosur Parliament in Montevideo, Uruguay, the Tobacconomics team participated in a research review meeting with its Latin America think tank partner network coordinated by the South American Network on Applied Economics (Red Sur). Read More
