政治遊說對菸品進口關稅的影響

The Political Economy of the Tobacco Taxation

相對於利益團體在實際遊說活動中的活躍，目前關於菸品稅的研究鮮少探討遊說對菸品關稅的影響，而採用理論模型方式探討此議題的文章更是少見。本文應用GrossmanandHelpman（1994）探討在不同情況下利益團體之遊說對於菸品關稅之影響。本文結果顯示，在大多數的情況下，政治決定的關稅水準均會偏離最適關稅水準。但若僅考慮本國國內利益團體的遊說，則兩利益團體的力量相互抵銷，遊說後的關稅政策與最適關稅相同。本文亦考慮菸商的遊說效率大於環保人士及吸菸者的情況，在三方遊說下，此時遊說後的關稅政策下降幅度將大於遊說效率一致時之關稅水準。 Compared to the active lobbying activities in the tobacco industries, the existing literature of tobacco taxation focuses on the impact of tobacco tax on cigarette consumption. Only few papers consider the role of political pressure in the formation of tobacco taxes, and none of them address this issue theoretically. To fill out the gap, this paper applies Grossman and Helpman’s (1994) menu-auction model to investigate how lobbying influences the formation of the import tobacco tariff in various cases. The results of this paper indicate that the politically-determined import tobacco tariff will be deviated from the optimal tariff in most cases. The politically-determined import cigarette tariff is the same as the optimal tariff when only the domestic environmentalists and the smokers simultaneous lobbying for the tobacco tariffs. The paper also shows that the level of politically-determined the tariff will be lower when the foreign tobacco firm is more effective in lobbying.