This paper examines the contribution of the regulatory ban on trans-fats and voluntary trans-fat regulation to public health outcomes for a sample of 39 countries in the period 1990–2015. To this end, we exploit within-country variation in trans-fat legislation to estimate the impact of the trans fat ban on cardiovascular mortality and obesity rates. Our difference-in-difference estimates indicate modest and beneficial effects of the trans-fats ban in reducing cardiovascular mortality and obesity rate. We find that the ban on trans fats tends to decrease the mortality rate attributed to cardiovascular diseases while the effects on the obesity rates are significant, especially among children and adolescent age group. By contrast, voluntary regulation of trans fats and demand-driven regulatory strategies are generally not associated with a marked drop in the obesity rate. By controlling for country-specific time trends, we show that the estimated mortality- and obesity-related impact of the ban is not driven by pre-existing trends, and does not affect non-cardiovascular mortality rate.

中文翻译：

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禁止反式脂肪会改善公共健康吗？寻找最佳的政策回应

本文研究了1990-2015年间39个国家的反脂肪禁令和自愿性反脂肪监管对公共卫生成果的贡献。为此，我们利用反式脂肪立法中的国内差异来估算反式脂肪禁令对心血管死亡率和肥胖率的影响。我们的差异差异表明反式脂肪禁令在降低心血管疾病死亡率和肥胖率方面具有适度和有益的作用。我们发现，禁止反式脂肪会降低心血管疾病的死亡率，而对肥胖率的影响却是显着的，尤其是在儿童和青少年年龄段。相比之下，反式脂肪的自愿监管和需求驱动的监管策略通常与肥胖率的明显下降无关。通过控制特定国家/地区的时间趋势，我们表明，该禁令的估计死亡率和肥胖相关影响不受先前趋势的驱动，并且不影响非心血管死亡率。