The empirical analysis of cigarette tax avoidance and illicit trade in Vietnam, 1998-2010.
Abstract
Illicit trade carries the potential to magnify existing tobacco-related health care
costs through increased availability of untaxed and inexpensive cigarettes. What is
known with respect to the magnitude of illicit trade for Vietnam is produced primarily
by the industry, and methodologies are typically opaque. Independent assessment of
the illicit cigarette trade in Vietnam is vital to tobacco control policy. This paper
measures the magnitude of illicit cigarette trade for Vietnam between 1998 and 2010
using two methods, discrepancies between legitimate domestic cigarette sales and domestic
tobacco consumption estimated from surveys, and trade discrepancies as recorded by
Vietnam and trade partners. The results indicate that Vietnam likely experienced net
smuggling in during the period studied. With the inclusion of adjustments for survey
respondent under-reporting, inward illicit trade likely occurred in three of the four
years for which surveys were available. Discrepancies in trade records indicate that
the value of smuggled cigarettes into Vietnam ranges from $100 million to $300 million
between 2000 and 2010 and that these cigarettes primarily originate in Singapore,
Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, and Australia. Notable differences in trends over time
exist between the two methods, but by comparison, the industry estimates consistently
place the magnitude of illicit trade at the upper bounds of what this study shows.
The unavailability of annual, survey-based estimates of consumption may obscure the
true, annual trend over time. Second, as surveys changed over time, estimates relying
on them may be inconsistent with one another. Finally, these two methods measure different
components of illicit trade, specifically consumption of illicit cigarettes regardless
of origin and smuggling of cigarettes into a particular market. However, absent a
gold standard, comparisons of different approaches to illicit trade measurement serve
efforts to refine and improve measurement approaches and estimates.
Type
Journal articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8346Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1371/journal.pone.0087272Publication Info
Denniston, R; Hoang, TA; Nguyen, HT; Nguyen, MT; Ross, H; & So, Anthony D (2014). The empirical analysis of cigarette tax avoidance and illicit trade in Vietnam, 1998-2010.
PLoS One, 9(1). pp. e87272. 10.1371/journal.pone.0087272. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8346.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
Collections
More Info
Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Anthony Deh-Chuen So
Visiting Professor of the Practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy
Dr. Anthony So joined Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy in 2004 as
director of a new Program on Global Health and Technology Access. The program focuses
on issues of globalization and health, particularly innovation and access to essential
medicines for those in developing countries. The program works as the Strategic Policy
Unit for ReAct, a global coalition dedicated to combating antibiotic resistance. Dr.
So's research on the ownership of knowledge and how it is best h

Articles written by Duke faculty are made available through the campus open access policy. For more information see: Duke Open Access Policy
Rights for Collection: Scholarly Articles