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Abstract: In this study we investigate the impact of the piece-wise Catalonia Sugar Sweetened Beverages tax on household expenditure and sugar consumption. We use longitudinal scanner data on all beverage purchases in a supermarket chain from May 2016 to April 2018 by 1 million households in Catalonia and Spain. We incorporate Difference-in-Differences models into an Almost Ideal Demand System and household consumption model.

We find that households move their expenditure from high sugar pops to low and medium sugar pops. They also reduce their expenditure shares in cavas as they are complementary to pops and they reduce expenditure shares of high sugar juices. We find an overall reduction in sugar, with strongest reductions for high sugar pops and colas. We find heterogeneous effects by age and income of the households with stronger reductions for higher socio-economic groups.

Eleonora FicheraBiography: Eleonora's research interests are in the economics of health and applied micro-economics. Her research investigates the socio-economic determinants of health in both developed and developing countries. Her recent work investigates the effect of information on food expenditure, health and housing, the relationship between health treatment and behaviours, the effect of early life interventions on later life health and the relation between physical and mental health.

Eleonora joined the University of Bath in March 2017 as Senior Lecturer in Economics. Previously, she was working at the Manchester Centre for Health Economics, University of Manchester where she held an MRC Early Career Fellowship in Economics of Health (2013-2016). Eleonora attained her PhD in Economics at the University of Nottingham, her M.Sc. in Economics at University College London and her B.A. at Bocconi University (Milan).