WIIW The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies - Wiener Institut für Internationale Wirtschaftsvergleiche

image credit: Economics for Health/wiiw

By Nora Kungl

Organised jointly by Economics for Health (formerly Tobacconomics) at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University (JHU), and the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw), the Global Meeting for Research on Tobacco Taxation was held in Istanbul between 15 and 18 October. This meeting, which brought together research partner institutions from more than 20 countries and four international organisations, discussed not only the latest research on tobacco taxation, but also some of the best practices employed to mobilise the accumulated knowledge in support of policy making in low- and middle-income countries.

The participants – who conduct research across three continents – took advantage of this valuable opportunity to exchange experiences and share successes and challenges from around the world. In each panel, the researchers presented a wide range of insights into specific topics and policy contexts: providing information on the ongoing implementation of tax increases, shedding light on tax policy setbacks in countries where tobacco control has stagnated and navigating data availability issues through innovative methodological approaches (e.g. ‘littered pack collection’ or household surveys).

Image credit: Economics for Health

wiiw participated in the panel ‘Innovation in Tobacco Tax Research’, moderated by Germán Rodriguez-Iglesias (JHU). Biljana Jovanovikj presented wiiw’s current work on creating a database of publicly available data for EU member states and candidate countries, and illustrated how such data could be utilised in tobacco taxation research. The message was echoed by another panellist, Ángel López-Nicolás (Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Spain), who emphasised the need to advocate for better data availability at public institutions.

Finally, representatives of multilateral organisations (World Bank, Pan American Health Organization, OECD, WHO) shared their experiences in supporting the implementation of tobacco tax reforms. They emphasised the need for collaboration with research groups, such as those present at the meeting: such groups can provide local expertise and country-specific analysis to support governments in utilising tobacco taxation as a fiscal and public health instrument.

In addition to the panels, two poster sessions provided an opportunity for participants, including wiiw’s in-house research team, to gather feedback on their most recent or ongoing research endeavours.

The Global Meeting was accompanied by an internal session with wiiw’s partners on the project ‘Tobacco Taxation in Eastern Europe’. It began with a presentation by Hana Ross, wiiw’s Senior Research Associate, on novel tobacco products. The presentation highlighted the challenges of standardising equivalence calculations of tobacco quantity across different products, in light of the proposed update to the EU Tobacco Taxation Directive (TTD) for extending taxation to new products in European countries. The session concluded with a discussion on the status of ongoing research efforts and suggestions for future research agendas.