Co maximalizuje spotřební daň? Evidence z přirozeného experimentu

Tax-setting policy belongs to the main duties of politicians from time immemorial. Since those times, people are questioning whether politicians, while setting taxes, are pursuing mainly interests of publi or their own. In this thesis, I am studying this question in the industry of alcoholic beverages, regulation of it's consumption and production. I am using two statistical models, simple model of partial equilibria and AIDS model (Almost Ideal Demand System), to estimate own price elasticity of demand for beer, wine and spirits in selected post-soviet countries: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russian Federation. Linear model with mixed effects is estimated to uncover the strength and direction of dependency of alcohol policy on own price elasticity of demand for alcoholic beverages in the above mentioned countries. Results show, that politicians of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania and Russian Federation set the alcohol policy in accordance with maximization of tax revenue hypothesis, while Latvians seems to be rather vote maximizers. I have expected the politicians in Baltic states to behave similar and also least populistically from studied countries. But my expectations were not fulfilled.