Tobacco tax and price in the developed and developing countries in the World

An ecologic study was conducted on 177 countries which the information of tobacco tax and price and also Human Development Index (HDI) was available in 2014. In this study, the relationship between HDI and four reported indexes by World Health Organization (WHO) was studied. These four indexes included: Tobacco affordability, Taxes as a percent of price of the most sold brand (total tax), Price of a 20 cigarette pack of the most sold brand international dollars at purchasing power parity (Price_ppp) and Price of a 20 cigarette pack of the most sold brand in US$ at official exchange rates (Price_US$). The data of HDI and tobacco were mined from WHO and United Nations Development Programme sites respectively. To study the correlation between HDI and the variables of this study, Pearson correlation coefficient was used and also Linear Regression Analysis was used to study the relationship between HDI and the variables of the study. According to the findings of the linear regression analysis, there was a significant relationship between HDI and total tax (B = 0.81, CI 95%: 0.63–0.99) and tobacco affordability (B = --0.35, CI 95%: --0.42 _ --0.28). There was also a significant relationship between HDI whit price-ppp (B = 9.44, CI 95%: 7.13–11.75) and price-US$ ;(B = 11.97, CI 95%: 9.71–14.23). According to the findings of this study, less developed countries devote less tax on tobacco. Due to the rising trend of the prevalence and also development of non-communicable diseases such as lung cancer in developing countries, policy makers of these countries are required to design stricter policies toward tobacco production and supply as well.

in developing countries, policy makers of these countries are required to design stricter policies toward tobacco production and supply as well.
& 2018 Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Specifications Table
Subject area environmental science More specific subject area Economics Type of data The findings of the study reveal that environmental, social and economic factors are among the most influential factors on governments' actions to control tobacco consumption.
According to the findings of the study, less developed countries devote less tax on tobacco. Due to the rising trend of the prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as lung cancer in developing countries, the policy makers of these countries are required to design stricter policies toward tobacco's production and consumption.
This study was an investigation about the laws of different countries toward framework convention on tobacco control based on Human Development Index.

Data
After excluding those countries whose information was unavailable or incomplete, 177 countries were investigated in the present study (Table 1).
There was a positive correlation between HDI and total tax which was significant statistically (r ¼ 0.56, p o 0.001). There was also a negative and significant correlation between HDI and affordability (r ¼ À0.65, p o 0.001) (Fig. 1). To study the association between HDI and total tax, linear regression analysis was used. According to the findings of this study, there was a statistically significant relationship between HDI and total tax (B ¼ 0.81, CI 95%: 0.63-0.99). In fact, in average when HDI increases for one unit, tax rises proportionally.
According to the linear regression analysis, there was a statistically significant relationship between HDI and affordability (B ¼ 0.35, CI 95%: À 0.41, À 0.28). According to the findings of this study, in average when HDI increases for one unit, affordability decreases. Therefore, countries with higher HDI level possess lower level of affordability (Table 2).
In the present study, there was a significant and negative correlation between HDI and price-ppp (r ¼ 0.52, p o 0.001) and price-US$ (r ¼ 0.62, p o 0.001) (Fig. 2). As seen in Fig. 2, in countries with lower HDI, less money is required to purchase tobacco products which makes the process of tobacco availability easier. In contrast, in countries with higher HDI, more money is required to purchase tobacco products which impacts the process of people's intention and availability tobacco.

Study countries description
Based on the studied conducted, tobacco tax and price are among the influential factors on the fall of tobacco consumption [1][2][3][4][5][6]. An ecologic study was conducted. After crossing out those countries whose information was unavailable or incomplete, 177 countries were investigated. In this study, the relationship between HDI and four variables of the study was analyzed. In this study, the relationship between HDI and four reported indexes by World Health Organization (WHO) was studied. These four indexes included: Tobacco affordability, Taxes as a percent of price of the most sold brand (total tax),   Price of a 20 cigarette pack of the most sold brand international dollars at purchasing power parity (Price_ppp) and Price of a 20 cigarette pack of the most sold brand in US$ at official exchange rates (Price _US$). The data of HDI and the information of tobacco were mined from WHO and United Nations Development Programme websites, respectively [7,8].

Analytical procedures
To study the correlation between HDI and the variables of the study, Pearson correlation coefficient was used. Meanwhile, linear regression analysis was used to analyze the relationship between HDI and the variables of the study.

Transparency document. Supplementary material
Transparency document associated with this article can be found in the online version at http://dx. doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2018.06.100.