IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aawewp/56693.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Calorie Posting in Chain Restaurants

Author

Listed:
  • Bollinger, Bryan
  • Leslie, Phillip
  • Sorensen, Alan

Abstract

We study the impact of mandatory calorie posting on consumers’ purchase decisions, using detailed data from Starbucks. We find that average calories per transaction falls by 6%. The effect is almost entirely related to changes in consumers’ food choices—there is almost no change in purchases of beverage calories. There is no impact on Starbucks profit on average, and for the subset of stores located close to their competitor Dunkin Donuts, the effect of calorie posting is actually to increase Starbucks revenue. Survey evidence and analysis of commuters suggest the mechanism for the effect is a combination of learning and salience.

Suggested Citation

  • Bollinger, Bryan & Leslie, Phillip & Sorensen, Alan, 2010. "Calorie Posting in Chain Restaurants," Working Papers 56693, American Association of Wine Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aawewp:56693
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.56693
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/56693/files/AAWE_WP54.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.56693?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sara Bleich & David Cutler & Christopher Murray & Alyce Adams, 2007. "Why Is The Developed World Obese?," NBER Working Papers 12954, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. David Dranove & Daniel Kessler & Mark McClellan & Mark Satterthwaite, 2003. "Is More Information Better? The Effects of "Report Cards" on Health Care Providers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 555-588, June.
    3. Raj Chetty & Adam Looney & Kory Kroft, 2009. "Salience and Taxation: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1145-1177, September.
    4. 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.
    5. Shin-Yi Chou & Inas Rashad & Michael Grossman, 2008. "Fast-Food Restaurant Advertising on Television and Its Influence on Childhood Obesity," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(4), pages 599-618, November.
    6. Hongbin Cai & Yuyu Chen & Hanming Fang, 2009. "Observational Learning: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 864-882, June.
    7. Julie S. Downs & George Loewenstein & Jessica Wisdom, 2009. "Strategies for Promoting Healthier Food Choices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 159-164, May.
    8. Currie, Janet & DellaVigna, Stefano & Moretti, Enrico & Pathania, Vikram, 2009. "The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity," Working Papers 47830, American Association of Wine Economists.
    9. 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)

    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. Robert Sandy & Gilbert Liu & John Ottensmann & Rusty Tchernis & Jeff Wilson & O. T. Ford, 2011. "Studying the Child Obesity Epidemic with Natural Experiments," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Aspects of Obesity, pages 181-221, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. 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.
    4. Sandro Ambuehl & B. Douglas Bernheim & Annamaria Lusardi, 2022. "Evaluating Deliberative Competence: A Simple Method with an Application to Financial Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(11), pages 3584-3626, November.
    5. Alois Stutzer & Armando N. Meier, 2016. "Limited Self‐control, Obesity, and the Loss of Happiness," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(11), pages 1409-1424, November.
    6. Harutyunyan, Artur & Janda, Karel, 2022. "Multinationals and Sustainable Attitude to Nutrition and Eating Habits," EconStor Preprints 261282, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    7. Andreas Hefti & Peiyao Shen & King King Li, 2021. "Igniting deliberation in high stake decisions: a field study," ECON - Working Papers 378, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    8. Engström, Per & Forsell, Eskil, 2018. "Demand effects of consumers’ stated and revealed preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 43-61.
    9. Houde, Sébastien & Myers, Erica, 2021. "Are consumers attentive to local energy costs? Evidence from the appliance market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    10. Richards Timothy J. & Mancino Lisa & Nganje William, 2012. "Nutrient Demand in Food Away from Home," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 1-31, April.
    11. Mouhcine Guettabi & Abdul Munasib, 2014. "Urban Sprawl, Obesogenic Environment, And Child Weight," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 378-401, June.
    12. Nancy Kong & Weina Zhou, 2021. "The curse of modernization? Western fast food and Chinese children's weight," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(10), pages 2345-2366, September.
    13. Peters, Jörg & Langbein, Jörg & Roberts, Gareth, 2016. "Policy evaluation, randomized controlled trials, and external validity—A systematic review," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 51-54.
    14. Richard Friberg & Erik Grönqvist, 2012. "Do Expert Reviews Affect the Demand for Wine?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 193-211, January.
    15. Shimokawa, Satoru, 2016. "Why can calorie posting be apparently ineffective? The roles of two conflicting learning effects," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 107-120.
    16. Helmers, Christian & Krishnan, Pramila & Patnam, Manasa, 2019. "Attention and saliency on the internet: Evidence from an online recommendation system," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 216-242.
    17. Xiang, Di & Zhan, Lue & Bordignon, Massimo, 2020. "A reconsideration of the sugar sweetened beverage tax in a household production model," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    18. Massimo Bordignon & Di Xiang & Lue Zhan, 2018. "Predicting the Effects of a Sugar Sweetened Beverage Tax in a Household Production Model," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def075, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    19. Kronlund, Mathias & Pool, Veronika K. & Sialm, Clemens & Stefanescu, Irina, 2021. "Out of sight no more? The effect of fee disclosures on 401(k) investment allocations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 644-668.
    20. John Komlos & Ariane Breitfelder & Marco Sunder, 2008. "The Transition to Post-industrial BMI Values Among US Children," NBER Working Papers 13898, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety;

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Economic Logic blog

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ags:aawewp:56693. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaweeea.html .

    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.