California is home to four of eight active local sugar-sweetened beverage (soda) taxes in the United States. The ability of additional California localities to impose soda taxes has been foreclosed by the California Legislature through 2030. We analyze the price and volume impacts of soda taxes in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco and find little pass through of the taxes to final consumers, in most cases, and little impact on retail sales of sugary beverages. The California soda taxes appear to be regressive, hitting low-income consumers hardest.
obesity, soda tax, tax incidence, regressive tax
Lang, Hairu, Kristin Kiesel and Richard Sexton. 2023. "How Well Are California’s Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes Working?" ARE Update 26(3): 1-4. University of California Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics.
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