Facilitating sugar taxes with top‐down and bottom‐up information: A combined approach for improved tax efficacy

Abstract With the widespread adoption of sugar‐sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes, top‐down facilitation measures—designed to influence consumer tax cognition—have limited impact, even though they are widely promoted as a means of enhancing tax effectiveness. This study introduces a bottom‐up facilitation approach that targets immediate and direct information available to consumers. We examine how these two types of facilitation measures jointly affect tax policy efficacy. Results indicate that top‐down measures, such as public health education campaigns, do not significantly reduce SSB purchases when implemented alone. However, when combined with bottom‐up measures—such as displaying the specific tax amount on product labels—the tax's effectiveness increases substantially. In addition, a difference‐in‐differences style analysis reveals that the combination of top‐down and bottom‐up facilitation measures significantly reduces consumer willingness to purchase SSBs and helps mitigate reactance observed under top‐down‐only conditions, particularly among consumers who are more likely to ignore or discount the top‐down educational information about the SSB tax. These findings provide actionable insights into how the design of public health taxation—such as SSB taxes—can be optimized to strengthen behavioral responses and enhance policy outcomes.