Impact of Eliminating Illicit Trade in Cigarettes on Consumption and Tax Revenues

It has been a decade since Luk Joossens et al published their influential study on the global illicit cigarette market, which examined a sample of 84 countries, and found that 11.6% of the world’s cigarette market was illicit. The study also found that eliminating illicit trade in cigarettes globally would reduce cigarette consumption by 2%, generating at least $31 billion in tax revenues, and preventing millions of deaths.