Food sales taxes and employment

Abstract

AbstractWe use panel fixed effects estimation with a border approach creating cross‐border county pairs to identify changes in food sales tax rates on employment, payroll, and hiring. Results suggest food sales taxes have a negligible effect on overall employment but adverse effects in the food and beverage stores industry. We find younger workers, who are more likely to work in the food and beverage industry, are more adversely affected when a neighboring state has preferential tax treatment for food. We also determine that omitting food sales tax rates when studying general sales tax effects on employment does not bias estimates.