Samuel Yang

Period 2B
Discussion Questions for Smoking and Smuggling
1. The politically driven motives for increasing the tax on cigarettes
are substantial; states have used previous cigarette-tax funds on
non-smoking related items, from paving roads to helping fund
scholarships. A lesser incentive for increasing the cigarette tax are
health concerns; sometimes these receipts are used to fund
antismoking advertising campaign in an effort tot curb smoking
among the population, especially young people.
2. The burden of the cigarette tax is largely placed upon lower-income
individuals; because a larger proportionality of lower-income
individuals smoke in comparison to higher-income individuals, the
cigarette tax affects mostly the former segment of the population.
Cigarettes do indeed follow the demand curve, but is far more
inelastic than most other goods, as people who smoke buy
cigarettes even when price is higher to fuel their addictions.
Cigarette taxes negatively affect total revenue due to dead weight
loss because of the tax.
3. Cigarettes are both light and compact relative to their market
value, already making them a prime target for smuggling. This,
combined with varying cigarette taxes around the world, increases
the formation of Black Markets where illegally imported (and
cheaper) cigarettes are sold in high-tax areas.
4. The high tariff rate on British tea during the American Revolution
stimulated smuggling; by 1784, an estimated two-thirds of all tea
consumed in Britain was contraband, as tea was a popular item and
was heavily taxed.
5. The number of cigarettes in a pack would decrease and the amount
of tobacco in a cigarette would increase; previous research has
shown that when cigarette taxes are raised, smokers tend to smoke
cigarettes that are longer and have more tar content.
Discussion Questions for Slave Redemption in Sudan
1. Slave redemption is buying slaves in large batches and setting
them free in an effort to reduce the number of people who are
slaves. Humanitarian groups increase the demand for Sudanese
slaves, thus raising prices for slaves both for the groups themselves
and slave-owners in Northern Sudan, and decreases supply for
slaves as more of them are transported out of the country.
2. The sentence means that since the market value of slaves has risen
due to an increase in demand, there is also an increase in the
quantity supplied; more raiders produce slaves by capturing them
to sell off.
3. Demand: Initially, demand for slaves in the north fell off to adjust to
a higher equilibrium price, thus achieving what the humanitarian

groups aimed to do. However, as the stock of slaves in the north

had adjusted to this new equilibrium level, and the redemption
effort continued, all the slaves subsequently freed by the
redeemers would have never been enslaved had the same
redeemers never made a market for them.
Supply: The supply of slaves in Sudan has increased significantly
because of increased demand for slaves by the redeemers, as
indicated by the reduction of less productive slaves been sent
home. Instead, now slaves who would have been freed on their own
are sent south to hold for sale for the redeemers.
4. This would mean that that the number of slaves held by private
owners in northern Sudan has decreased; as the price for slaves
increased, private owners bought fewer slaves.
5. The higher profitability and volume of slaving today implies that the
number of slaves held in inventory in the south for trading purposes
has increased dramatically; slaves that would have been freed
earlier (because they were not profitable) are now held in captivity
for redemption.