IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/uersmp/330083.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Consumer Use of Information: Implications for Food Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Aldrich, Lorna

Abstract

Government programs that are designed to improve health by changing diets focus on information: education, public information campaigns, and regulation of advertising and labeling. Research from several social science disciplines offers insights for public dissemination and regulation of nutrition information. A review of selected literature in economics, nutrition education, and marketing highlights several research themes. These are the need to motivate consumers to use nutrition information, the value consumers place on time, the possibility that information can change the effects of income on food choices, and the value of enhanced life and health from improved nutrition.

Suggested Citation

  • Aldrich, Lorna, 1999. "Consumer Use of Information: Implications for Food Policy," Miscellaneous Publications 330083, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:uersmp:330083
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.330083
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/330083/files/ah715.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.330083?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julie A. Caswell & Eliza M. Mojduszka, 1996. "Using Informational Labeling to Influence the Market for Quality in Food Products," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1248-1253.
    2. Julie A. Caswell, 1992. "Current Information Levels on Food Labels," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(5), pages 1196-1201.
    3. Ratchford, Brian T, 1975. "The New Economic Theory of Consumer Behavior: An Interpretive Essay," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 2(2), pages 65-75, Se.
    4. Stigler, George J., 2011. "Economics of Information," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 35-49.
    5. Deborah J. Brown & Lee F. Schrader, 1990. "Cholesterol Information and Shell Egg Consumption," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 72(3), pages 548-555.
    6. Ippolito, Pauline M & Mathios, Alan D, 1995. "Information and Advertising: The Case of Fat Consumption in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 91-95, May.
    7. Variyam, Jayachandran N. & Blaylock, James R. & Smallwood, David, 1995. "Modeling Nutrient Intake: The Role of Dietary Information," Technical Bulletins 156772, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    8. Chern, Wen S & Loehman, Edna T & Yen, Steven T, 1995. "Information, Health Risk Beliefs, and the Demand for Fats and Oils," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(3), pages 555-564, August.
    9. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb..
    10. Kelvin J. Lancaster, 1966. "A New Approach to Consumer Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74, pages 132-132.
    11. Blaylock, James R. & Smallwood, David M., 1986. "U.S. Demand for Food: Household Expenditures, Demographics, and Projections," Technical Bulletins 157011, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    12. Putnam, Judy & Gerrior, Shirley, 1997. "Americans Consuming More Grains and Vegetables, Less Saturated Fat," Food Review/ National Food Review, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, vol. 20(3), pages 1-11.
    13. Nelson, Philip, 1974. "Advertising as Information," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(4), pages 729-754, July/Aug..
    14. Blisard, Noel & Blaylock, James R. & Smallwood, David, 1994. "Dietary Fiber: Effects of Socioeconomic Characteristics and Knowledge," Technical Bulletins 156771, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    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. Umberger, Wendy J. & Scott, Emily M. & Stringer, Randy, 2008. "Australian Consumers' Concerns and Preferences for Food Policy Alternatives," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6174, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    2. Golan, Elise H. & Kuchler, Fred & Mitchell, Lorraine, 2000. "Economics Of Food Labeling," Agricultural Economic Reports 34069, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Louise Heslop, 2006. "If we label it, will they care? The effect of GM-ingredient labelling on consumer responses," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 203-228, June.
    4. Tomas Philipson & Richard Posner, 2008. "Is the Obesity Epidemic a Public Health Problem? A Decade of Research on the Economics of Obesity," NBER Working Papers 14010, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Mojduszka, Eliza M. & Everett, Rachel M., 2003. "Endogenous Consumer Preferences And Knowledge About Nutrition," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22074, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    6. Muradian, Roldan & Pelupessy, Wim, 2005. "Governing the coffee chain: The role of voluntary regulatory Systems," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 2029-2044, December.
    7. Lee, Cheryl Hill & Schluter, Gerald E., 2002. "Why Do Food Manufacturers Introduce New Products?," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 33(1), pages 1-10, March.
    8. Mojduszka, Eliza M. & Everett, Rachel M. & Nemana, Aparna, 2005. "Exogenous vs. Endogenous Consumer Preferences and Knowledge about Nutrition," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24630, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Ricciuto, Laurie E. & Tarasuk, Valerie S., 2007. "An examination of income-related disparities in the nutritional quality of food selections among Canadian households from 1986-2001," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 186-198, January.

    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. Stefanella Stranieri & Lucia Baldi & Alessandro Banterle, 2010. "Do Nutrition Claims Matter to Consumers? An Empirical Analysis Considering European Requirements," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 15-33, February.
    2. Blaylock, James & Smallwood, David & Kassel, Kathleen & Variyam, Jay & Aldrich, Lorna, 1999. "Economics, food choices, and nutrition," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2-3), pages 269-286, May.
    3. Rimal, Arbindra & Balasubramanian, Siva K. & Moon, Wanki, 2004. "Two-Stage Decision Model Of Soy Food Consumption Behavior," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20096, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    4. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, January.
    5. Alessandro Bonanno & Francesco Bimbo & Marco Costanigro & Alfons Oude Lansink & Rosaria Viscecchia, 2019. "Credence attributes and the quest for a higher price – a hedonic stochastic frontier approach," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 46(2), pages 163-192.
    6. Sendhil Mullainathan & Joshua Schwartzstein & Andrei Shleifer, 2008. "Coarse Thinking and Persuasion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 577-619.
    7. Veisten, Knut, 2007. "Contingent valuation controversies: Philosophic debates about economic theory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 204-232, April.
    8. Rodolfo Nayga, 2001. "Effect of Schooling on Obesity: Is Health Knowledge a Moderating Factor?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 129-137.
    9. Grolleau, Gilles & Caswell, Julie A., 2006. "Interaction Between Food Attributes in Markets: The Case of Environmental Labeling," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 31(3), pages 1-14, December.
    10. Robert B. Ekelund & Mark Thornton, 2019. "Extreme Credence and Imaginary Goods," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 47(3), pages 361-371, September.
    11. Andreas C. Drichoutis & Panagiotis Lazaridis & Rodolfo M. Nayga, 2009. "Would consumers value food-away-from-home products with nutritional labels?," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 550-575.
    12. Ting Liu & Monic Jiayin Sun, 2007. "Informal Payments in Developing Countries' Public Health Sectors¤," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2007-032, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    13. Justin P. Johnson & David P. Myatt, 2006. "On the Simple Economics of Advertising, Marketing, and Product Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 756-784, June.
    14. Garrett, Vicki & Koontz, Tomas M., 2008. "Breaking the cycle: Producer and consumer perspectives on the non-adoption of passive solar housing in the US," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1551-1566, April.
    15. Mancino, Lisa & Kuchler, Fred & Leibtag, Ephraim, 2008. "Getting consumers to eat more whole-grains: The role of policy, information, and food manufacturers," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 489-496, December.
    16. Breeda Comyns & Frank Figge & Tobias Hahn & Ralf Barkemeyer, 2013. "Sustainability reporting: The role of “Search”, “Experience” and “Credence” information," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 231-243, September.
    17. Huffman, Sonya K. & Ishdorj, Ariun & Jensen, Helen H., 2005. "Consumer Choices and Welfare Gains from New, Healthy Products: A Virtual Prices Approach," ISU General Staff Papers 200501010800001012, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    18. Zezza, Annalisa, 2002. "The Changing Public Role in Services to Agriculture: The Case of Information," 2002 International Congress, August 28-31, 2002, Zaragoza, Spain 24902, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Ruben Chumpitaz & Kristiaan Kerstens & Nicholas Paparoidamis & Matthias Staat, 2010. "Hedonic price function estimation in economics and marketing: revisiting Lancaster’s issue of “noncombinable” goods," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 145-161, January.
    20. Trestini, Samuele & Giampietri, Elisa & Szathvary, Serena & Dal Bianco, Andrea, 2018. "Insights on the Alleged Imitation of Prosecco Wine Name: The Case of the German Market," International Journal on Food System Dynamics, International Center for Management, Communication, and Research, vol. 9(4), August.

    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:uersmp:330083. 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/ersgvus.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.