Charith Imalka Wijemanna Student ID: XXXXXXXXXX
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ADVANCED APPLIED MANAGEMENT (MGT737)
PROGESS REPORT – 01
XXXXXXXXXXSEMESTER TWO 2018
Consumer Response Towards Tax Increase of
Cigarettes: With reference to Sri Lanka and New
Zealand Consumer Behavior
Charith Imalka Wijemanna
Student ID: XXXXXXXXXX
Supervisor: John Gallacher
Charith Imalka Wijemanna Student ID: XXXXXXXXXX
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Contents
Introduction .............................................................................................................. XXXXXXXXXX2
Section One: Secondary Research ........................................................................... XXXXXXXXXX3
Section Two: Primary Research ............................................................................... XXXXXXXXXX5
Section Three: Emphasis Changes ........................................................................... XXXXXXXXXX5
Section Four: Other Information .............................................................................. XXXXXXXXXX6
Section Five: Coming Weeks’ Plan (6th August 2018 – 22nd September 2018) .... XXXXXXXXXX6
Section Six: Actual to Plan Thus Far (31st July 2018 – 5th August 2018) .............. XXXXXXXXXX7
Bibliography ............................................................................................................. XXXXXXXXXX8
Introduction
While thinking about a topic to be done as my research, I thought about various consumer products
and how the taxes affect people’s day to-day lives, as each and everything that we pay for is taxed.
As cigarettes are not necessity goods, I finalized to research on how consumers react to the increase
in the taxes of cigarettes, of Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Furthermore, an increase in tax on
cigarette may results two impacts.
1. Social Impact
2. Economic Impact
Charith Imalka Wijemanna Student ID: XXXXXXXXXX
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Section One: Secondary Research
Following is the secondary research reviewed and for the period of 3rd July to 5th July.
(Micaela H. Coady, 2013 June)
In this research, the relationship between the excise tax increases and tax avoidant purchasing
ehaviors have been examined by this group of researchers by selecting New York City adult
smokers as their target group. New York’s Annual Community Health Survey, has analyzed the
data to evaluate the tax avoidance between 2003 to 2010 and also the smokers’ responses to the
cigarette tax increase in 2008. The shown result was, after the tax increase in 2002, the percentage
of smokers applying tax avoidance decreased from 30% to 13% from 2003 to 2007. After the tax
increase in 2008, 21% of smokers had intended to buy more cigarettes through black-market rather
than buying from a shop. This article’s conclusion was that to maximize the public health impact,
cigarette tax increases should be combined with efforts to limit the flow of untaxed cigarettes to
countries with high cigarette packet prices. This journal article would benefit for my research as it
has highlighted the consumer responses to cigarette excise tax changes.
(Lesley Chiou, 2010 June)
In this article two researches from the Occidental College and the Harvard Kennedy school had
conducted a research based on consumer response to cigarette excise tax changes in Chicago
metropolitan area. They have scanned the data of cigarette sales from Dominick’s Finer Foods,
Chicago. These researches have gathered information on excises taxes imposed by the government
to neighboring states and Illinois. In this research they have applied two empirical approaches to
highlight the areas of how the consumers adapt to tax changes.
The result of this research is that, consumers have switched between more and less expensive
cigarettes and have crossed country borders to purchase cigarettes. This report would be benefit to
my research as it has highlighted the consumer response to cigarette excise tax changes.
Charith Imalka Wijemanna Student ID: XXXXXXXXXX
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(Dr George Thomson, 2007 November)
In this article a Health Economist and a researcher had produced a report on Tobacco Taxation in
New Zealand. The purpose of the report as per the authors are to assess the use of tobacco taxation
to improve the health of New Zealanders. Also, another purpose of the report is making the policy
ecommendations on tobacco taxation in New Zealand. From the information they collected, they
found out that New Zealand’s 750,00 smokers approximate average amount spent is $2135 each
per year, from which $1500 is government tax revenue. Hence the consumption of cigarettes has
dropped substantially during the past few decades. However, they have investigated that other
factors than price such as changes in social attitudes to smoking, smoke free legislation etc. have
also contributed to the fall in the consumption and increasing the tax rates are not the only
instrument for tobacco control. This report also would be benefit to my research as it has
highlighted the consumer response to cigarette excise tax changes.
(Nolan, 2017)
This article the researcher had looked at the responsiveness of cigarette tax. Government motivate
cigarettes taxes to raise money for the state and at the same time there is another motive to
discourage smoking habit. The researcher had focused on the tax revenue before and after the
state’s tax increase and compared them to a state that had a similar level of tax revenue before the
tax increment. This had exposed that the effectivity of the state tax revenue increment and at the
same time that permitted to calculate the cigarette consumption. As a result, the researcher had
proven that higher the revenue become increased of the state it decreases the number of packs sold
in the state. Furthermore, they found that, from the decrease of the packs sold cannot be considered
as a decrease in consumption. Tax increases are effective at increasing revenue, but it doesn’t
directly say that they are effective at reducing consumption.
This research article will contribute to my research project as it shows the taxation and consumer
ehavior.
Charith Imalka Wijemanna Student ID: XXXXXXXXXX
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Section Two: Primary Research
For the primary research I’m going to take a sample of 100 which is 50 from Sr Lanka and 50 from
New Zealand. For the primary data collection, I will use both quantitative and qualitative data for
the research and these data will be used to answer the research question. In New Zealand I’m
targeting the groups of cigarette smokers because it will ease to do findings. Primary research will
not be conducted until NMIT’s ethics committee have given approval to this project. Further, I
will create a questionnaire by using the Google Docs and collect the data via social medias to
collect data from Sri Lanka. I have chosen the questionnaires because it is a good method of
collecting data.
As I have worked as a
and ambassador for the Ceylon Tobacco Company, Sri Lanka I have
conducted a survey for the company based on how the customers react to the new products and
the products which had relaunch to the market. For an instance, Benson and Hedges relaunched to
the