Taxing Tobacco: A Conversation with Mike Lovenheim

Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Scott and Jeff discuss the some of the fascinating details related to the taxation of tobacco. We often think of the tax system as a tool to raise revenue. But the tax system is also used to encourage or discourage behavior. Taxing tobacco is one example of this type of tax, but the existence of the tax creates many strange incentives that affect the way people behave, including, counterintuitively, smoking more under some circumstances.