Are Restaurants Really Supersizing America?

Michael Anderson and David A. Matsa

No 37652, CUDARE Working Papers from University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Abstract: While many researchers and policymakers infer from correlations between eating out and body weight that restaurants are a leading cause of obesity, a basic identification problem challenges these conclusions. We exploit the placement of Interstate highways in rural areas to obtain exogenous variation in the effective price of restaurants and examine the impact on body mass. We find no causal link between restaurant consumption and obesity. Analysis of food-intake micro-data suggests that consumers offset calories from restaurant meals by eating less at other times. We conclude that regulation targeting restaurants is unlikely to reduce obesity but could decrease consumer welfare.

Keywords: Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Health Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 68
Date: 2007-12-30
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/37652/files/An ... DARE%201056R4%20.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Are Restaurants Really Supersizing America? (2011)
Working Paper: Are Restaurants Really Supersizing America? (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:ucbecw:37652

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.37652

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CUDARE Working Papers from University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().