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The article describes the Tobacconomics project, ‘Accelerating Progress on Tobacco Taxes in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries’ and the capacity building model used by the Tobacconomics team to develop core competencies in economic analysis among think tank partners, whose research is presented in this supplement. Between 2017 and 2019, the Tobacconomics team at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a partner of the Bloomberg Initiative To Reduce Tobacco Use, partnered with 27 policy research institutions (called ‘think tanks’ in this article) in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). This supplement contains selected research on the economics of tobacco control from our partners. This overview article describes the capacity building model used by the Tobacconomics team. The article also shares experiences and lessons learnt thus far. This Tobacconomics project, Accelerating Progress on Tobacco Taxes in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (grant number KC 085918) is funded at approximately US$4 million per year by Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use. (The views expressed in this document cannot be attributed to, nor do they represent, the views of University of Illinois at Chicago, the Institute for Health Research and Policy, or Bloomberg Philanthropies.) The project supports research efforts to establish evidence-based tobacco tax systems. It is a capacity building project, but decidedly issue-specific. Significant increases in cigarette and other tobacco product taxes are the most effective and cost-effective policy for reducing the death, disease and economic consequences of tobacco use. Evidence from numerous countries around the world demonstrates that increases in taxes that raise prices lead current users to quit, reduce consumption among continuing users and are particularly effective in preventing uptake among young people. At the same time, these taxes are an efficient mechanism for increasing government revenue.1–5 The project responds to the need for locally produced and high-quality …

BackgroundThis study examines the association between the Tobacconomics cigarette tax scores and cigarette consumption in 97 countries during the period of 2014–2020.MethodsData on countries’ retail cigarette sales and overall cigarette tax scores from 2014 to 2020 are drawn from the proprietary Euromonitor International database and the Tobacconomics Cigarette Tax Scorecard (second edition). Information on countries’ tobacco control environments and demographic characteristics is from the relevant years’ WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, and the World Bank’s World Development Indicators database. Ordinary least squares regressions are employed to examine the link between countries’ overall cigarette tax scores and cigarette consumption. All regressions control for countries’ tobacco control environments, countries’ demographic characteristics, year indicators and country fixed effects.ResultsEach unit increase in the overall cigarette tax scores is significantly associated with a reduction of 9% in countries’ per-capita cigarette consumption during 2014–2020. The reduction is more pronounced in low and middle-income countries (9%) than in high-income countries (6%). The modest improvement in scores from 2014 to 2020 is associated with a reduction of 3.27% in consumption, while consumption could have been reduced by 20.74% had countries implemented optimal tax policies that would earn the highest score of 5.ConclusionsOur results provide evidence on the association between higher cigarette tax scores and lower cigarette consumption. To reduce tobacco consumption, governments must strive to implement all four components in the Cigarette Tax Scorecard at the highest level.