Tobacco Taxes in China: Impacts on Smokers’ Health and Finances

Tobacco taxes are widely regarded as one of the most effective policy tools available for limiting the accessibility and availability of tobacco. Raising tobacco taxes has also been deemed the single most cost-effective way to save lives in developing countries. For China, which is home to roughly one-third of the world’s 820 million male smokers, the need for such a mechanism is dire. But do the gains in health and revenues raised from tobacco taxes outweigh the costs to households, especially poor ones?