在欧盟（EU）中，每年约有70万人死于吸烟有关的疾病。因此，减少烟草消费已成为欧盟的主要社会政策之一。

The tobacco control policies (MPOWER) proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2008 serve as a guideline for the health authorities of the EU member states. The six MPOWER measures mandate (i) increases in the tobacco tax; (ii) monitoring of tobacco usage; (iii) support for quitters; (iv) creation of a smoking-free environment; (v) warning against the dangers of tobacco; (vi) and banning tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

大量的实证研究表明，大多数消费者面临较高的零售价格时，确实会降低消费。

在MAPEWRE措施中，税收是控制烟草使用的最常见的单一政策工具。经济理论表明，增加烟草税将导致吸烟者的直接成本更高，从而减少消费。

Theoretically, the tobacco industry could absorb the additional costs to prevent higher retail prices, but, in reality, increased costs are passed on to the consumers. Numerous empirical studies have demonstrated that most consumers, when confronted with higher retail prices, indeed reduce consumption, while others switch to lower-priced products or turn to smuggled goods.

建模增加10％的税收

在我们的研究中，我们估计了28个欧盟国家吸烟的消费，税收收入和死亡人数的假设卷烟价格上涨10％的影响。

Unlike previous studies, our statistical model also accounted for the fact that income affects the responsiveness of consumers to price changes. Research has shown that smokers with high disposable income are less affected by rising cigarette prices than those with lower income. In other words, the price elasticity of demand changes with income (income threshold effect).

The price elasticity of demand is used to measure changes in demand of goods in response to changes in price. It gives the percentage change in quantity demanded in response to a one percent change in price.

我们的统计模型将观察到的28个国家分为三个收入集群（政权），假设集群中的所有国家都具有相同的价格上涨的响应模式。使用2005年至2014年的数据，我们的模型估计了每个收入集群的价格弹性。

Nicotine use would be reduced by 12.27% in Bulgaria and Romania; by 8.29% in Latvia and Poland; and by 5.03% in the EU24 countries.

Based on the elasticity figures, we were able to estimate the possible effects of a hypothetical price increase of 10% on consumption, tax revenues and the number of averted smoking-attributable deaths. The latter figure derived from the simulated impact of price increments on the reduction in smokers and was adjusted for the fact that smoking cessation still carries considerable risks of early death.

The results of our study revealed that higher taxation would be considerably more effective in reducing consumption as well as incidences of smoking-related deaths in the two less developed regimes than in the remaining 24 countries (EU24) belonging to the third income regime. Specifically, nicotine use would be reduced by 12.27% in Bulgaria and Romania; by 8.29% in Latvia and Poland; and by 5.03% in the EU24 countries.

与其他措施（例如禁止烟草广告）不同，税收不仅有效地减少了烟草消费量，而且总的来说，税收也具有增加国家税收收入的有益副作用。我们的模拟表明，尽管拉脱维亚和波兰在EU24地区的税收收入增加了7.03％，但在最不发达国家，保加利亚和罗马尼亚，收入下降了1.41％。

Different policies for different countries

What are the policy implications? As the results of the study show, there are three income regimes among the observed 28 European countries. Since each regime is differently affected by cigarette taxation, different policies must be adopted to fight nicotine use. Specifically, other measures to control tobacco use, such as restrictions on advertisements, pictorial warning labels and cessation assistance, are necessary in high-income countries to compensate for the income threshold effect.

Moreover, as the study has shown, higher taxation leads to significant increases in tax revenues in high-income regimes, but in poorer countries it is more likely to lead to considerable losses in tax revenues. Health authorities in less developed countries may thus lack crucial funding to implement anti-smoking measures. External funding (donations from other European countries) would thus be required to ensure success in combating cigarette use.

该研究尚未纳入烟草产品的非法贸易，因为所有国家都无法获得可靠的数据。此外，本研究中分析的有关香烟消费的数据是指工厂制造的（FM）香烟。近年来，您拥有的烟草（RYO）烟草产品在欧盟变得流行，并可能影响消费行为。因此，对价格影响的进一步研究可能会解决非法贸易和RYO香烟使用的问题。