In this world, nothing is certain, except for death and taxes.

And those are both hot topics, especially lately on this podcast.

Last week, we talked about Tax Day itself, which is normally April 15th, or thereabouts,

and how the stress or incentives surrounding that day can make us change our behavior,

unconsciously and unconsciously.

Sometimes changing behavior is the point of a tax.

For centuries, so-called sin taxes have been put on products like alcohol and tobacco,

which are bad for us as individuals, and also as a society.

When the government wants us to stop doing something, it can ban that thing altogether,

like we do with assault rifles and copyright infringement.

Lots of recreational drugs are banned and we tried to ban alcohol in the 1920s,

but banning products has its downsides.

For one thing, it can create a black market which causes all sorts of other problems.

Another approach is to tax the behavior. Whatever it is, you can still do it,

but it'll cost you more.

The purpose of sin taxes is to get us to use less of those things that are bad for us,

to change your behavior in ways that will eventually improve our own health,

and sometimes the health of others.

But do these taxes even work, and do they work how we want them to?

From the Freakonomics Radio Network, this is Freakonomics MD.

I'm Bob Ujena. I'm an economist and I'm also a medical doctor.

Each episode, I dissect an interesting question at the sweet spot between health and economics.

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