Inequality of the crowding-out effect of tobacco expenditure in Colombia

Juan Miguel Gallego; Guillermo Paraje; Paul Rodríguez-Lesmes

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0303328

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 11, 2023
11 Mar 2024 Decision Letter - Enrique Teran, Editor PONE-D-23-33110Inequality of the crowding-out effect of tobacco expenditure in ColombiaPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Rodríguez-Lesmes, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== The research paper, titled "Inequality of the Crowding-Out Effect of Tobacco Expenditure in Colombia," delves into the impact of tobacco tax on the budget allocations of low socioeconomic status (SES) households. Through the application of genetic matching methods, the study establishes a counterfactual group for smoking households. The primary aim is to examine the differences in consumption shares between smoking households and the control group, seeking to determine whether smoking behavior results in a crowding-out effect on other expenditures. While the methodology employed in the article is relatively innovative, a universally accepted and robust testing procedure is currently lacking. Nevertheless, the technical process appears sound without discernible flaws. Despite these strengths, the paper faces several issues that require attention for publication. Key concerns include: 1) The data utilized spans a relatively extended period, and discussions about this timeframe should consider the potential impact of exogenous shocks. 2) The reliance on genetic matching prompts consideration of whether incorporating other matching methods could enhance result robustness. 3) The empirical conclusions section is criticized for being a mere enumeration of results, lacking in-depth discussion. 4) It is essential to clarify whether the first quintile to the fifth quintile represents the poorest to the richest or vice versa. 5) What are the policy implications based on the findings? 6) Additionally, what is the contribution, innovation, and limitation of this study?============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 25 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. 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While the methodology employed in the article is relatively innovative, a universally accepted and robust testing procedure is currently lacking. Nevertheless, the technical process appears sound without discernible flaws. Despite these strengths, the paper faces several issues that require attention for publication. Key concerns include: 1) The data utilized spans a relatively extended period, and discussions about this timeframe should consider the potential impact of exogenous shocks. 2) The reliance on genetic matching prompts consideration of whether incorporating other matching methods could enhance result robustness. 3) The empirical conclusions section is criticized for being a mere enumeration of results, lacking in-depth discussion. 4) It is essential to clarify whether the first quintile to the fifth quintile represents the poorest to the richest or vice versa. 5) What are the policy implications based on the findings? 6) Additionally, what is the contribution, innovation, and limitation of this study? Addressing these concerns comprehensively will significantly fortify the paper and improve its suitability for publication. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). 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Revision 1
17 Apr 2024 Author Response We have carefully considered each of the reviewers' comments and have made the following revisions to address their concerns. We slightly changed the order of the comments and group two of them together. 3) The empirical conclusions section is criticized for being a mere enumeration of results, lacking in-depth discussion. 6) Additionally, what is the contribution, innovation, and limitation of this study? Addressing these concerns comprehensively will significantly fortify the paper and improve its suitability for publication. R: Many thanks for these recommendations, certainly we were not highlighting enough such elements. We have rewritten the discussion and conclusion sections so they reflect the central elements: i. Our central innovation is on studying crowding-out in a dynamic setting, specifically, during the expansion of the Colombian welfare state. This is different from the existing literature as most papers concentrate on measuring crowding-out at a given point in time. It also means that our ‘methods’ differ from the standard studies given the different objectives. ii. Our contribution is to show that crowding out of expenditures linked to human capital accumulation is less relevant once a strong welfare state is in place. iii. The central limitation is that while the matching allows us to compare a relatively homogenous group across time, we cannot estimate the ‘impact’ of the social policy expansions on budget shares as we do not have an adequate control group of ‘treated’ smokers vs ’non-treated’ smokers. In other words, we are estimating an object closer to a local average treatment effect (LATE) rather than an average treatment effect on smokers (ATT). Here the ‘local’ group corresponds to smokers that had characteristics similar to those of smokers in 2011, rather than the ‘compliers’ of an instrumental variables’ setup. iv. Another limitation is that we cannot isolate the effects of the social policy expansion from the changes in tobacco control policies as they occur simultaneously during the period. Still, as the tobacco control policies were strengthening over time, ours became a lower bound of the changes that would be derived solely by the expansion of the benefits. 1) The data utilized spans a relatively extended period, and discussions about this timeframe should consider the potential impact of exogenous shocks. R: Indeed, it is a relatively extended period. Such period was selected based on (i) availability of data, (ii) tobacco control interventions, and (iii) welfare policies. During this period many exogenous shocks have occurred. Still, as we do a comparison within year of smokers vs. non-smokers across expenditure quantiles, specific time shocks are removed. Yet, as the strategy is still challenged by the composition of who are the smokers (more a preferences trend than a year-specific shock), the matching strategy aims to establish a group as homogenous as possible to minimize such concern. The central limitation here is our inability to disentangle the change in tobacco control policies from the changes in the welfare state. We now acknowledge this limitation in the discussion as described above. 2) The reliance on genetic matching prompts consideration of whether incorporating other matching methods could enhance result robustness. R: In principle, we did not include results with other methods as the genetic matching is one of the best options available. But we see the point on showing that the results are not an artifact of the method. For this reason, as a supplemental material (B. Robustness), we have included results without matching, and with a traditional propensity score kernel matching. In the main text, we included a paragraph at the end of the results section discussing these alternatives. In general, results are qualitatively the same. 4) It is essential to clarify whether the first quintile to the fifth quintile represents the poorest to the richest or vice versa. R: Many thanks for pointing this out. We have made clear in the methods, in the results, and in the Table notes that we refer to quintiles of total expenditure over equivalised household size. Hence, quintile 1 corresponds to the ‘poorest’, and quintile 5 to the ‘richest’. In Table 2, the difference is from quintile 5 to quintile 1 (the richest to the poorest). 5) What are the policy implications based on the findings? Our message is simple: Governments and parliaments of middle-income countries should not refrain from increasing taxes due to crowding out of expenditures. R: In the tobacco control literature, the are several studies that show that one of the implications of tobacco consumption is that it results in less disposable income for households. Still, this argument implies that increasing taxes would improve the situation of those quitting smoking but exacerbate the problem of those who remain smoking. Hence, these policies could lead the ‘victims’ of tobacco control, and their descendants, to poverty. We show that the Government can protect them with effective general policies directed towards health and education, irrespective of the smoking status of households. We have rewritten the conclusions to make this point salient. We believe that these revisions have strengthened the manuscript and have addressed the concerns raised by the reviewers comprehensively. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303328.r002
24 Apr 2024 Decision Letter - Enrique Teran, Editor Inequality of the crowding-out effect of tobacco expenditure in Colombia PONE-D-23-33110R1 Dear Dr. Rodríguez-Lesmes, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Enrique Teran Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Thank you for considered the points made by reviewers and get back with a more robust manuscript. It will be now suitable for publication. Congratulations! Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303328.r003
Formally Accepted
3 May 2024 Acceptance Letter - Enrique Teran, Editor PONE-D-23-33110R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Rodríguez-Lesmes, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Enrique Teran Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303328.r004

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