An Experimental Investigation of the Impact of Fat Taxes: Prices Effects, Food Stigma, and Information Effects on Economics Instruments to Improve Dietary Health

There is currently no published research on how food taxes may affect consumer behaviour when the imposition of the tax itself may be considered a source of consumer information. The work undertaken here seeks to address this gap in the literature by using experimental methods to enhance understanding on the joint effects of price changes induced by a fat tax and the stigma associated with the application of the tax. First, we conduct an interdisciplinary literature review (drawing from economics, psychology, and health promotion) and theoretical investigation of the impact of stigma on economic choice behaviours. We then employ Attribute-Based Stated Choice Methods (ABSCM) to elicit consumer response to fat tax scenarios that rely only on price changes, and to those that involve both price changes and stigma effects. The study is still ongoing, and will use a computer-assisted field data collection approach to collect data from participants at grocery stores and/or other food purchase venues. Econometric analysis of the resulting data will allow us to investigate the price response, stigma effect, and price-stigma interaction elicited by various taxation and labelling schemes. Preliminary results from pre-test samples are discussed here.