TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bollinger,Bryan
AU  - Leslie,Phillip
AU  - Sorensen,Alan
TI  - Calorie Posting in Chain Restaurants
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15648
PY  - 2010
Y2  - January 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15648
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15648.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Bryan Bollinger
NYU
E-Mail: bbolling@stern.nyu.edu

Phillip Leslie
Anderson School of Management
UCLA
Box 951481
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Tel: 650-387-5498
E-Mail: pleslie@anderson.ucla.edu

Alan T. Sorensen
Department of Economics
University of Wisconsin, Madison
6454 W.H. Sewell Social Science Bldg
1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Tel: 608/263-3867
E-Mail: sorensen@ssc.wisc.edu
AB  - We study the impact of mandatory calorie posting on consumers’ purchase decisions, using detailed data from Starbucks. We find that average calories per transaction falls by 6%. The effect is almost entirely related to changes in consumers’ food choices—there is almost no change in purchases of beverage calories. There is no impact on Starbucks profit on average, and for the subset of stores located close to their competitor Dunkin Donuts, the effect of calorie posting is actually to increase Starbucks revenue. Survey evidence and analysis of commuters suggest the mechanism for the effect is a combination of learning and salience.
ER  -