Irz, Xavier, Leroy, Pascal, Réquillart, Vincent and Soler, Louis-Georges (2014) Economic assessment of nutritional recommendations. TSE Working Paper, n. 14-473

[thumbnail of wp_tse_473.pdf]
Preview
Text
Download (409kB) | Preview

Abstract

The effect of consumers’ compliance with nutritional recommendations is uncertain because of potentially complex substitutions. To lift this uncertainty, we adapt a model of consumer behaviour under rationing to the case of linear nutritional constraints. Dietary adjustments are thus derived from information on consumer preferences, consumption levels, and nutritional contents of foods. A calibration exercise simulates, for different income groups, how the French diet would respond to various nutrition recommendations, and those behavioural adjustments are translated into health outcomes through the DIETRON epidemiological model. This allows for the ex-ante comparison of the efficiency, equity and health effects of ten nutritional recommendations. Although most recommendations impose significant taste costs on consumers, they are highly cost-effective, with the recommendations targeting salt, saturated fat, and fruits and vegetables (F&V) ranking highest in terms of efficiency. A five percent change in consumption of any of those nutrients or food would reduce premature mortality in excess of 2100 lives annually. By contrast, urging consumers to modify their consumption of fibers, sugar-fat products and dietary cholesterol is unlikely to be socially desirable, often due to large unintended adjustments in some dimensions of dietary quality. Most recommendations are economically progressive, with the exception of that targeting F&V.

Item Type: Monograph (Working Paper)
Date: February 2014
Uncontrolled Keywords: food choice, diet, rationing, norms, healthy
Subjects: B- ECONOMIE ET FINANCE
Divisions: TSE-R (Toulouse)
Site: UT1
Date Deposited: 09 Jul 2014 17:42
Last Modified: 02 Apr 2021 15:48
OAI Identifier: oai:tse-fr.eu:27927
URI: https://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/15839
View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year