Information Cost and Consumer Choices of Healthy Foods

Chen Zhu, Rigoberto Lopez and Xiaoou Liu

American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2016, vol. 98, issue 1, 41-53

Abstract: This article examines whether or not a reduction in consumer search cost for nutritional information increases the probability that heterogeneous consumers will choose healthier food products. Empirical results from the ready-to-eat breakfast cereal (RTEC) market confirm the conceptual analysis that lowering information cost via simplified nutritional labeling increases the healthfulness of consumer choices. The healthfulness attribute weighs 28.44% more heavily in consumers' decision-making with simpler labeling systems. On average, introducing front-of-package labeling increased the probability of a consumer choosing a healthy RTEC by 3.49% and reduced the probability of choosing an unhealthy RTEC by 3.81%. Calories, sugar, saturated fat, and sodium consumption decrease by 0.31%, 2.63%, 6.94%, and 1.97%, respectively. Fiber intake increases by 3.24%. Further results show that less-educated and smaller households with less frequent purchases benefit the most from a reduction in information cost. Overall, this article shows the potentially positive role that voluntary, more convenient labeling could play in improving market and public health outcomes.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ajae/aav057 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Information Cost and Consumer Choices of Healthy Foods (2014)
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:oup:ajagec:v:98:y:2016:i:1:p:41-53.

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Agricultural Economics is currently edited by Madhu Khanna, Brian E. Roe, James Vercammen and JunJie Wu

More articles in American Journal of Agricultural Economics from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().