IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jhecon/v39y2015icp106-122.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Micro-marketing healthier choices: Effects of personalized ordering suggestions on restaurant purchases

Author

Listed:
  • Bedard, Kelly
  • Kuhn, Peter

Abstract

We study the effects of the Nutricate receipt, which makes personalized recommendations to switch from unhealthy to healthier items at a restaurant chain. We find that the receipts shifted the mix of items purchased toward the healthier alternatives. For example, the share of adult main dishes requesting “no sauce” increased by 6.8 percent, the share of kids’ meals with apples (instead of fries) rose by 7.0 percent and the share of breakfast sandwiches without sausage increased by 3.8 percent. The results illustrate the potential of emerging information technologies, which allow retailers to tailor product marketing to individual consumers, to generate healthier choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Bedard, Kelly & Kuhn, Peter, 2015. "Micro-marketing healthier choices: Effects of personalized ordering suggestions on restaurant purchases," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 106-122.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:39:y:2015:i:c:p:106-122
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2014.10.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629614001362
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2014.10.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-793, September.
    2. David Card, 1990. "The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 43(2), pages 245-257, January.
    3. Matthew Rabin & Ted O'Donoghue, 1999. "Doing It Now or Later," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 103-124, March.
    4. Stephen G. Donald & Kevin Lang, 2007. "Inference with Difference-in-Differences and Other Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(2), pages 221-233, May.
    5. Jonathan Gruber & James M. Poterba, 1993. "Tax Incentives and the Decision to Purchase Health Insurance: Evidence from the Self-Employed," NBER Working Papers 4435, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Jessica Wisdom & Julie S. Downs & George Loewenstein, 2010. "Promoting Healthy Choices: Information versus Convenience," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 164-178, April.
    7. Davis, B. & Carpenter, C., 2009. "Proximity of fast-food restaurants to schools and adolescent obesity," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(3), pages 505-510.
    8. Marianne Bertrand & Dean Karlan & Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir & Jonathan Zinman, 2010. "What's Advertising Content Worth? Evidence from a Consumer Credit Marketing Field Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 263-306.
    9. Kiesel, Kristin & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2013. "Can information costs affect consumer choice? Nutritional labels in a supermarket experiment," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 153-163.
    10. Bryan Bollinger & Phillip Leslie & Alan Sorensen, 2011. "Calorie Posting in Chain Restaurants," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 91-128, February.
    11. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    12. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    13. Jonathan Gruber & James Poterba, 1994. "Tax Incentives and the Decision to Purchase Health Insurance: Evidence from the Self-Employed," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 701-733.
    14. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    15. David Hirshleifer & Sonya Seongyeon Lim & Siew Hong Teoh, 2009. "Driven to Distraction: Extraneous Events and Underreaction to Earnings News," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2289-2325, October.
    16. Arindrajit Dube & T. William Lester & Michael Reich, 2010. "Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 945-964, November.
    17. Janet Currie & Stefano DellaVigna & Enrico Moretti & Vikram Pathania, 2010. "The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity and Weight Gain," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 32-63, August.
    18. , & ,, 2006. "A model of choice from lists," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(1), pages 3-17, March.
    19. Michael L. Anderson & David A. Matsa, 2011. "Are Restaurants Really Supersizing America?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 152-188, January.
    20. Bassett, M.T. & Dumanovsky, T. & Huang, C. & Silver, L.D. & Young, C. & Nonas, C. & Matte, T.D. & Chideya, S. & Frieden, T.R., 2008. "Purchasing behavior and calorie information at fast-food chains in New York City, 2007," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(8), pages 1457-1459.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John Cawley & Alex Susskind & Barton Willage, 2020. "The Impact of Information Disclosure on Consumer Behavior: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment of Calorie Labels on Restaurant Menus," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 1020-1042, September.
    2. Toni Mora & Beatriz G. Lopez‐Valcarcel, 2018. "Breakfast choice: An experiment combining a nutritional training workshop targeting adolescents and the promotion of unhealthy products," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 306-319, February.
    3. Dhaval Dave & Bo Feng & Michael F. Pesko, 2019. "The effects of e‐cigarette minimum legal sale age laws on youth substance use," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 419-436, March.
    4. Michael Lechner & Nuria Rodriguez-Planas & Daniel Fernández Kranz, 2016. "Difference-in-difference estimation by FE and OLS when there is panel non-response," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(11), pages 2044-2052, August.
    5. Gehrsitz, Markus & Saffer, Henry & Grossman, Michael, 2021. "The effect of changes in alcohol tax differentials on alcohol consumption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    6. Henry Saffer & Daniel Dench & Michael Grossman & Dhaval Dave, 2020. "E-cigarettes and adult smoking: Evidence from Minnesota," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 60(3), pages 207-228, June.
    7. Stearns, Jenna, 2015. "The effects of paid maternity leave: Evidence from Temporary Disability Insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 85-102.
    8. Melissa Fuster & Margaret A. Handley & Tamara Alam & Lee Ann Fullington & Brian Elbel & Krishnendu Ray & Terry T-K Huang, 2021. "Facilitating Healthier Eating at Restaurants: A Multidisciplinary Scoping Review Comparing Strategies, Barriers, Motivators, and Outcomes by Restaurant Type and Initiator," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-18, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kelly Bedard & Peter J. Kuhn, 2013. "Making Nutritional Information Digestible: Effects of a Receipt-Based Intervention on Restaurant Purchases," NBER Working Papers 19654, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Lechner, Michael, 2011. "The Estimation of Causal Effects by Difference-in-Difference Methods," Foundations and Trends(R) in Econometrics, now publishers, vol. 4(3), pages 165-224, November.
    3. Sergei Guriev & Biagio Speciale & Michele Tuccio, 2019. "How do Regulated and Unregulated Labor Markets Respond to Shocks? Evidence from Immigrants During the Great Recession," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 37-76.
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/73bviabv8o80nrgh0mm5h3163q is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Cawley, John, 2015. "An economy of scales: A selective review of obesity's economic causes, consequences, and solutions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 244-268.
    6. Partha Deb & Carmen Vargas, 2016. "Who Benefits from Calorie Labeling? An Analysis of its Effects on Body Mass," NBER Working Papers 21992, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Magruder, Jeremy R., 2013. "Can minimum wages cause a big push? Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 48-62.
    8. Loureiro, Maria L. & Rahmani, Djamal, 2013. "Calorie labeling and fast food choices in surveys and actual markets: some new behavioral results," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150622, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Matthew D. Webb, 2023. "Reworking wild bootstrap‐based inference for clustered errors," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(3), pages 839-858, August.
    10. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2021. "Answering causal questions using observational data," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2021-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    11. Bütikofer, Aline & Abrahamsson, Sara & Karbownik, Krzysztof, 2023. "Swallow This: Childhood and Adolescent Exposure to Fast Food Restaurants, BMI, and Cognitive Ability," CEPR Discussion Papers 18213, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Belman, Dale. & Wolfson, Paul J., 2016. "What does the minimum wage do in developing countries? : A review of studies and methodologies," ILO Working Papers 994893283402676, International Labour Organization.
    13. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    14. Herrero Prieto, Luis César, 2009. "La investigación en economía de la cultura en España: un estudio bibliométrico/Research in Cultural Economics in Spain: A Bibliometric Study," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 27, pages 35-62, Abril.
    15. Tracy L. Regan & Gulcin Gumus, 2006. "Tax Incentives as a Solution to the Uninsured: Evidence from the Self-Employed," Working Papers 0709, University of Miami, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2007.
    16. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    17. Alberto Abadie & Alexis Diamond & Jens Hainmueller, 2007. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California's Tobacco Control Program," NBER Working Papers 12831, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    19. Eric James Stokan, 2019. "An Estimate of the Local Economic Impact of State-Level Earned Income Tax Credits," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 33(3), pages 170-186, August.
    20. Cotti, Chad & Tefft, Nathan, 2013. "Fast food prices, obesity, and the minimum wage," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 134-147.
    21. Görlitz, Katja, 2010. "The effect of subsidizing continuous training investments -- Evidence from German establishment data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 789-798, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:39:y:2015:i:c:p:106-122. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505560 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.