No abstract

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest nutritional safety net in the United States. Prior research has found that participants have higher consumption shortly after receiving their benefits, followed by lower consumption towards the end of the benefit month. Known as the “SNAP benefit cycle,” this consumption pattern has been found to have negative effects on beneficiaries. We hypothesize two behavioral responses of SNAP participants may work in tandem to drive much of the cycle: (1) short‐run impatience—a higher preference to consume today, and (2) fungibility of income—the degree of substitutability between a SNAP dollar and a cash dollar. Using data from the National Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS), a newly developed nationally representative survey of daily food acquisitions by SNAP households, we find evidence of both behavioral responses. However, the degree of short‐run impatience and fungibility of income is found to differ significantly across poverty levels and use of grocery lists to plan food purchases. SNAP households could gain from food purchase planning education.

Nutrition labels can potentially benefit consumers by increasing product knowledge and reducing search costs. However, the global increase in obesity rates leads one to question the effectiveness of current nutrition information formats. Alternative formats for providing nutrition information may be more effective. Shoppers at a major grocery chain participated in choice experiments designed to identify preferences for nutrition information provided on grocery store shelf labels. Shoppers demonstrate a strong affinity for shelf label nutrition information and the presentation of the nutrition information significantly affects their preferences as well. Several demographic variables help to explain differences in preferences.

The health-related problems caused by poor diet choices has elevated the policy importance of how to communicate nutrition information more effectively to consumers at the point of purchase. At the same time, food retailers want to provide their customers with nutrition information in the format their shoppers prefer. The shopping environment, which includes the provision of nutrition information, is a way that food retailers can differentiate themselves from the competition. In this article, we present a simple model of the demand for nutrition information and empirically evaluate consumer preferences for two different formats. We compare nutrition information on grocery store shelf labels in the Greater San Francisco Area presented in detailed and summary formats. The detailed nutrition information provides an explicit description of specific nutrients but may be more costly to process and difficult to understand. Summary nutrition information reduces processing effort but provides a condensed description of nutritional content. The results indicate that there are higher mean preferences for detailed nutrition labels but also a greater dispersion of preferences. Nutrition-conscious consumers are more likely to prefer detailed information. The summary format may benefit shoppers who are less likely to use other forms of information.

The display of nutrition facts is mandatory on virtually all packaged foods sold in the United States. Yet manufacturers and retailers add their own claims to differentiate their products and capture consumers' attention at point of sale. We implement experimental nutrition claims on shelf labels in a retail setting and test how consumers react to the display of these labels that express information reported on the Nutrition Facts Panel in a different format. We hypothesize that our labels either shift demand for the highlighted healthier products uniformly or trigger more complex demand rotations. Our estimated heterogeneous labeling effects suggest that consumers process nutrition information differently depending on which and how many claims are displayed and prefer products labeled with a single claim overall. When we simultaneously consider demand and supply responses under three price setting behaviors (competitive pricing, Bertrand‐Nash pricing, and monopoly pricing), we find that consumer surplus and overall welfare is highest when our labels display multiple nutrient claims and retailers are able to adjust prices across the entire product category. Firms' profits are highest when single nutrient claims are displayed, however. We conclude that firms with market power have little incentive to voluntarily display nutrition claims that maximize welfare.