Quantifying Grocery Tax Impacts on Health Utilizing Multiple State Tax Changes in the United States

Grocery taxes (sales taxes imposed on groceries) exist in about one-third of U.S. states; however, their impacts on consumer’s health remain unknown. During 2006 through 2015, several states in the U.S. had changed grocery tax rates multiple times (see figure 1 compiled by authors). We therefore propose to exploit such variations to credibly identify how grocery taxes affected health outcomes, in particular, obesity and diabetes prevalence in the United States. Applying the difference-in-differences estimator, our main hypothesis is that a decrease in grocery tax decreased county-level obesity and diabetes rates.