Calorie Posting in Chain Restaurants

Bryan Bollinger, Phillip Leslie and Alan Sorensen

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2011, vol. 3, issue 1, 91-128

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 fall by 6 percent. 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 suggests the mechanism for the effect is a combination of learning and salience. (JEL D12, D18, D83, L83)

JEL-codes: D12 D18 D83 L83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
Note: DOI: 10.1257/pol.3.1.91
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (129)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.3.1.91 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/pol/data/2010-0011_data.zip (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Calorie Posting in Chain Restaurants (2010)
Working Paper: Calorie Posting in Chain Restaurants (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:aea:aejpol:v:3:y:2011:i:1:p:91-128

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy is currently edited by Matthew Shapiro

More articles in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().