Published: July 2019

ID #: CAS031

Journal: Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy

Authors: Zhen C, Zheng X

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Summary shelf nutrition labels are one of a handful of practical strategies that hold the promise of improving nutrition and public health. Researchers used a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the effect of the NuVal shelf label—an interpretive numeric score, now defunct, that rated the overall nutrition of foods from one (least healthful) to 100 (most healthful)—on consumer demand for yogurt. The results indicate that NuVal labels affected product sales through an information provision effect that increases with the value of the nutrition score on the product and a publicity (i.e., salience) effect that is unrelated to the level of the score. A one-point increase in NuVal score on a yogurt product is estimated to increase demand by 0.23%.

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