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A theoretical and empirical investigation of nutritional label use

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Abstract

Due in part to increasing diet-related health problems caused, among others, by obesity, nutritional labelling has been considered important, mainly because it can provide consumers with information that can be used to make informed and healthier food choices. Several studies have focused on the empirical perspective of nutritional label use. None of these studies, however, have focused on developing a theoretical economic model that would adequately describe nutritional label use based on a utility theoretic framework. We attempt to fill this void by developing a simple theoretical model of nutritional label use, incorporating the time a consumer spends reading labels as part of the food choice process. The demand equations of the model are then empirically tested. Results suggest the significant role of several variables that flow directly from the model which, to our knowledge, have not been used in any previous empirical work.

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Notes

  1. In the analysis we had to collapse the underweight category with the normal weight category because of the few cases in the underweight category and also due to the fact that there were only women who were underweight in our sample.

  2. To test the validity of using a variable as a product of two other variables, we also tried estimating Eq. (10) using m and N as separate variables. This estimation produced the same results.

  3. The parameter estimates are available upon request.

  4. Since the number of observations in some label-use categories may be small, we experimented by estimating Eqs. (9) and (10) when some categories of the label-use variable were collapsed together. Results remained practically unchanged, and therefore we decided to continue with the original formulation since this is more informative.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Sean Cash, Yanhong Jin, Stephan Marette, Brit Grosskopf, and the participants of the 97th EAAE seminar that took place in Reading, UK, for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the theoretical part of the paper. We would also like to thank Anna Matzana, Lenia Sfakianaki, Andreas Togias, Anthi Liberakou, and Anastasios Lidoris for helpful research assistance. All errors are ours alone.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, Votanikos, 118 55, Athens, Greece

    Andreas C. Drichoutis, Panagiotis Lazaridis & George Chryssochoidis

  2. Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr.

  3. Department of Food Science and Technology, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, Votanikos, 118 55, Athens, Greece

    Maria Kapsokefalou

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  1. Andreas C. Drichoutis
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  2. Panagiotis Lazaridis
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  3. Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr.
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  4. Maria Kapsokefalou
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  5. George Chryssochoidis
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Correspondence to Andreas C. Drichoutis.

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Drichoutis, A.C., Lazaridis, P., Nayga, R.M. et al. A theoretical and empirical investigation of nutritional label use. Eur J Health Econ 9, 293–304 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-007-0077-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-007-0077-y

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