Harry Clarke

Michael Adams in The Economist’s Voice argues that tobacco companies should be taxed additionally to recoup the statistically-estimated costs of smoking by minors (subscription required). This would mean that cigarette producers would have no incentives to promote their products to young people and since most people start smoking at age 18 or less (the average age [...]

This Op-Ed writer in The WSJ – Brad Schiller – asserts that Obama’s ’trebling’ of excises on cigarettes from 39 cents to $1-01 (it is not a ‘trebling’!) will reduce the tax revenues accruing to US states collecting the tax given an elasticity of demand for cigarettes of -0.8.  That is a true statement – state tax [...]