ArticleTobacco control2023
No smoking gun: tobacco taxation and smuggling in Sierra Leone.
Article in Tobacco control, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- The African cigarette price data landscape: an overview of gaps and opportunities.Tobacco control · 2026Article
- Economic and econometric methods to measure the illicit tobacco trade: A scoping review.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Navigating power in policy adoption: The political economy of noncommunicable diseases in Sierra Leone.SSM - health systems · 2025Article
- Trends in the illicit tobacco market in New Zealand: a consumption gap analysis.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- An overlooked market: loose cigarettes, informal vendors and their implications for tobacco taxation.Tobacco control · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo evaluate the common industry claim that higher tobacco taxation leads to higher levels of smuggling, particularly in a limited state capacity setting.
designThis paper evaluates the effects of a tobacco tax increase in Sierra Leone on smuggling by using gap analyses. Its models are based on multiple rounds of the Demographic and Health Survey and customs data as well as newly collected data on cigarette prices.
resultsThe paper shows that despite a substantial increase in cigarette taxation, and despite the absence of other formal tobacco control policies, smuggling has not increased in Sierra Leone. Its primary model shows a decrease in cigarette smuggling by 16.74% following the tax increase, alongside a decrease in cigarette consumption more widely and an increase in tax revenue.
conclusionsBy presenting a low income and lower enforcement capacity case study, this paper provides novel and critical evidence to the debate on the tax-smuggling link. Furthermore, it points to new questions on how states in these contexts can limit cigarette smuggling.
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Registered trials
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