Eating to save the planet: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial using individual-level food purchase data

Jalil, Andrew; Tasoff, Joshua; Bustamante, Arturo Vargas

doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.101950

Cited by 64 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Women decrease their consumption of beef by 1.5 percentage points (13.3%), but weakly increase their consumption of poultry and fish (ns). Though we expected differences by gender, as we found nearly twice the treatment effect from women compared to men in our previous study (Jalil et al, 2020), we did not expect this pattern, nor do we have a good explanation for it. In the long run, the effects are no longer statistically significant.…”

Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 69%

“…Past research has shown that men and women respond to interventions aimed at diet-change in different ways (Jalil et al, 2020 ). As we specified in our pre-analysis plan, we estimate the treatment effects disaggregated on men and women in Table 2 .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Past research shows that interventions designed to reduce meat consumption may have different effects on men and women. Jalil et al ( 2020 ) find that a classroom intervention on the climate-change impact of food choices reduced meat consumption nearly twice as much for women as for men. We again find that men and women react to the intervention in different ways.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To our knowledge, there are only three previous randomized-controlled trials in this area with real meat consumption data in the field. One examines the effect of defaults (Hansen et al, 2019 ) and the other two examine the effect of education (Jalil et al, 2020 ; Schwitzgebel et al, 2020 ). Three other studies conduct field experiments with exogenous variation to estimate the effect of menu manipulation and product placement (Garnett et al, 2019 , 2020 ; Vandenbroele et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Changing Hearts and Plates: The Effect of Animal-Advocacy Pamphlets on Meat Consumption

et al. 2021

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Social movements have driven large shifts in public attitudes and values, from anti-slavery to marriage equality. A central component of these movements is moral persuasion. We conduct a randomized-controlled trial of pro-vegan animal-welfare pamphlets at a college campus. We observe the effect on meat consumption using an individual-level panel data set of approximately 200,000 meals. Our baseline regression results, spanning two academic years, indicate that the pamphlet had no statistically significant long-term aggregate effects. However, as we disaggregate by gender and time, we find small statistically significant effects within the semester of the intervention: a 2.4 percentage-point reduction in poultry and fish for men and a 1.6 percentage-point reduction in beef for women. The effects disappear after 2 months. We merge food purchase data with survey responses to examine mechanisms. Those participants who (i) self-identified as vegetarian, (ii) reported thinking more about the treatment of animals or (iii) expressed a willingness to make big lifestyle changes reduced meat consumption during the semester of the intervention. Though we find significant effects on some subsamples in the short term, we can reject all but small treatment effects in the aggregate.

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Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 69%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Changing Hearts and Plates: The Effect of Animal-Advocacy Pamphlets on Meat Consumption

et al. 2021

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“…In this paper, we did not investigate the actual capacity of a policy to change behaviors. However, it is worth noting that recent evidence indicates that certain information interventions, which are considered widely acceptable, can affect food consumption behaviors in the short and mid term [ 58 ]. When possible, it is also up to the policy-maker to consider nudges, which can, under certain circumstances, overcome the trade-off between coerciveness and effectiveness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Acceptability of Food Policies

Espinosa

Nassar

2021

Nutrients

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We propose and test a model of food policy acceptability. The model is structured in four levels: government, topic, policy, and individual. In this study, we focus on two levels that are actionable for policy-makers: the topic and policy levels. We assess nine factors using a first online survey with 600 UK nationals and replicate our results in a second survey with 588 participants. Our results suggest that three factors have a positive effect on acceptability at the topic level: awareness of the issue, the legitimacy of state intervention, and social norms. At the policy level, we report a positive effect of the policy’s expected effectiveness, its appropriate targeting of consumers, and the perceived support of the majority. On the other hand, more coercive interventions and those generating inequalities are judged to be less acceptable. Additionally, we report an interaction between awareness and coerciveness on acceptability. Participants who are aware of the issue were more likely to support coercive policies. We also find evidence for a trade-off between coerciveness, effectiveness, and acceptability, as more coercive measures are considered more effective, but less acceptable by participants. Our findings offer policy-makers, nutrition experts, and advocates for healthier and more sustainable diets a new and integrated understanding of the underlying factors that determine food policy acceptability.

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