Are Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Information Labels Well-Targeted? Evidence and Welfare Implications

This project studies whether information labels that attempt to correct consumer internalities when purchasing sugar-sweetened beverages are well-targeted. Since the adverse health outcomes primarily manifest in older adults, we will also specifically analyze how well-targeted these information labels are among the subpopulation of older adults. We will answer our research questions by deploying novel methods for evaluating the targeting properties of information labels via an incentive-compatible online shopping experiment. At a high-level, we will ask whether the treatment effects of the information labels are concentrated on individuals with the biggest self-control problems and with the least knowledge of nutrition. We will first use the methodology from Allcott et al. (2019a) to estimate the internality for each participant. We will then have participants make shopping decisions for soft drinks, first absent any information labels and then, for those not in the control group, in the presence of an information label. The within-subject design of the soft drinks experiment will allow us to estimate how the effects of the labels covary with consumers' internalities, and thus to determine whether the labels are well-targeted.