Comparative Analysis of Tobacco Tax Policy Factors across Eight OECD Countries

Background: Smoking remains a major global public health challenge, and tobacco taxation has been widely recognized as an effective policy tool for reducing smoking prevalence.The present study aimed to analyze the associations of cigarette prices, tobacco taxes, and their affordability with smoking rates across eight OECD countries from 2010 to 2022.Methods: Analyses included descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, and a two-way fixed-effects model using panel data.Results: Correlation analysis showed that specific tax rates were negatively correlated with smoking rates.Further analysis using the two-way fixed-effects model with clustered robust standard errors revealed that both affordability and total tobacco tax rates had negative coefficients, suggesting that higher cigarette affordability burden and higher tax rates were associated with lower smoking prevalence.However, the statistical significance of policy variables weakened after controlling for country and year effects.In contrast, the country-and year-fixed effects remained strongly significant, with most year effects exhibiting significantly negative coefficients, indicating a substantial long-term global decline in smoking prevalence.Conclusion: Variations in smoking rates were influenced not only by pricing and taxation policies but also by structural differences across countries and long-term global anti-smoking trends.In addition, affordability measures may provide a useful framework for assessing tobacco control policies in cross-country comparative studies.