Can indirect methods be used as an approximation to estimate alcohol excise taxation revenue?

  • Daniela Correia WHO Regional Office for Europe https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8886-3211
  • Ahmed S Hassan Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH); PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre at CAMH; Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto (UofT.
  • Pol Rovira Program on Substance Abuse & WHO European Region Collaborating Centre at Public Health Institute of Catalonia
  • Daša Kokole WHO Regional Office for Europe; Department of Health Promotion, CAPHRI Care and Public Health Research Institute, Maastricht University, Netherlands
  • Maria Neufeld WHO Regional Office for Europe
  • Carina Ferreira-Borges WHO Regional Office for Europe
  • Jürgen Rehm WHO Regional Office for Europe, UN City, Marmorvej 51, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark; Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), 250 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5T 1R8 ; PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre at CAMH, 250 College Street, Toronto, Ontario,Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto (UofT), 155 College St Room 500, Toronto, ON M5T 3M7; Canada, M5T 1R8 ; Program on Substance Abuse & WHO European Region Collaborating Centre at Public Health Institute of Catalonia, Roc Boronat Street 81 - 95, 08005, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), 250 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5T 1R8; Institute of Medical Science, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, C. David Naylor Building, 6 Queen’s Park Crescent, Suite 119, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H2; Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, 250 College Street, 8th floor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5T 1R8; Centre of Interdisciplinary Addiction Research (ZIS), Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Martinistraße 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.641
Keywords: alcohol, excise taxation, revenue, tax share, prediction

Abstract

Introduction: Alcohol excise taxation is one of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) “best buys” for reducing alcohol consumption and attributable harms. Despite its proven effectiveness, alcohol taxation remains globally underused, partly due to Member States’ concerns about potential revenue losses. Robust estimation methods are essential to predict future revenues after policy changes. This study compares two approaches for estimating alcohol excise tax revenue per capita and assesses their validity against reported figures.

Methods: Reported alcohol excise tax revenue per capita for 2022 was retrieved from official government sources for 17 countries in the European Union and the United Kingdom. These figures were compared to estimated values generated using two different methods: 1) a tax-and-consumption-based approach using beverage-specific tax and consumption data, and 2) an excise share-based approach using the linear relationship between excise tax share and revenue. Comparisons were made using visual inspection of scatterplots, relative error plots, and Bland-Altman plots, correlation analysis and linear regression models.

Results: Both methods showed strong correlation with reported revenue (tax-and-consumption-based: r = 0.959; excise share-based: r = 0.857) and high explained variance of the reported revenue. The tax-and-consumption-based method demonstrated higher precision, narrower limits of agreement, and significantly better model fit.

Conclusions: Both methods provide useful alternatives in the absence of reported data, but the tax-and-consumption-based approach offers a more accurate and consistent estimate of alcohol excise tax revenue per capita. These findings support its use in global monitoring and fiscal modelling, particularly in the context of WHO technical support to Member States.

Published
2026-02-15
How to Cite
Correia, D., Hassan, A. S., Rovira, P., Kokole, D., Neufeld, M., Ferreira-Borges, C., & Rehm, J. (2026). Can indirect methods be used as an approximation to estimate alcohol excise taxation revenue?. International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research. https://doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.641
Issue
Early View Papers and Abstracts
Section
KBS 2025 Conference Issue

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