This is the third of three papers exploring tobacco, alcohol, obesity and gambling policy. It argues that the contribution of such activities to the economy should not be used as a justification to avoid action to discourage them, whereas the costs they generate through ill health are more significant – though they should not be overstated.
KEY POINTS
- Economic arguments are often used to resist public health measures, and increasingly to promote them, though they often confuse quite different types of costs and benefits.
- While many (though not all) interventions involve lower sales of unhealthy commodities, it is important to remember that a loss of spending in one particular sector will be at least partly offset by higher spending in others.
- We need to look at the specific characteristics of different industries to understand the trade-offs involved in shifting activity between them.
- For example, pubs and restaurants tend to generate a large of number of relatively poorly paid jobs; online gambling employs fewer people but at higher wages and generates exports.
- The economic costs associated with health harms, unlike the costs to particular industries, are a pure loss to the economy, not offset by gains elsewhere.
- Improving health outcomes should reduce working-age deaths, decrease economic inactivity and sickness absence and improve efficiency, leading to a bigger and more productive workforce.
- Yet these gains should not be overstated – the cost of these issues to the economy is likely in the tens of billions, which means addressing them is only likely to boost growth by a fraction of a percentage point a year.
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