World Bank office in Vienna organized a two-day conference in Vienna (June 24-25, 2024) where researchers presented their findings and exchanged experiences in the field of health tax reforms. The focus of the conference was tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages taxation, with representatives of the policymakers also taking part in the conference. The conference is co-organized by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health which is the partner of the University of Banja Luka Faculty of Economics on the project “Accelerating Progression on Tobacco Taxation in Low- and Middle-Income Countries”. The principal investigator from the project on behalf of the University of Banja Luka Faculty of Economics presented the study “Measuring the economic costs of tobacco use – Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
From June 25 to 26, research meetings were also held at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, where the main researcher presented experiences in the project implementation so far (which has been implemented since 2018) and presented the results related to the economic aspects of tobacco use in B&H, as well as challenges in the implementation of stricter tobacco control policies in B&H, a country that ranks among the highest in the world for the percentage of smokers in its population (smoking prevalence).
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