Chain Restaurant Calorie Posting Laws, Obesity, and Consumer Welfare

Charles Courtemanche, David Frisvold, David Jimenez-Gomez, Mariétou H Ouayogodé and Michael K Price

Journal of the European Economic Association, 2025, vol. 23, issue 5, 1669-1711

Abstract: This paper investigates whether and why laws requiring chain restaurants to post calories on menus and menu boards work. We develop a model of calories consumed that highlights multiple potential channels through which these laws influence choice and that outlines an empirical strategy to disentangle these alternatives. We test the predictions of our model using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System on body mass index and consumer well-being, as well as our own surveys on how the law influences where people eat and how randomized exposure to calorie information affects feelings toward menu items. Viewed in its totality, our results are consistent with an economic model in which calorie labels influence consumers both by providing salient information and by imposing a welfare-reducing moral cost (or feelings of guilt) on unhealthy eating.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeea/jvaf004 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:jeurec:v:23:y:2025:i:5:p:1669-1711.

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the European Economic Association is currently edited by Romain Wacziarg

More articles in Journal of the European Economic Association from European Economic Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().