Abstract / Summary
In recent years, health and nutrition policies that spur behavioral change through the provision of information have risen in popularity, in part due to their relatively lower implementation costs. This study investigates the heterogeneous impact of the Nutrition Facts Panel (NFP) update, specifically focusing on the disclosure of added sugars on carbonated soft drink (CSD) consumption in the United States. Using NielsenIQ household panel data covering 9989 U.S. households between 2017 and 2020, we first estimate a difference-in-differences framework before and after label implementation as a baseline analysis. We find that the policy led to significant reductions in CSD purchases on average. We then use causal forest methods to examine heterogeneous treatment effects and show that the response varies systematically with household demographic and attitudinal characteristics. Lower-income and less-educated consumers exhibited stronger reductions, while higher-income, health-conscious households, who already prioritized healthier attributes, were less influenced. Consumers’ attitudes towards different food attributes also play a critical role. Scenario analyses suggest that predicted responsiveness to the disclosure varies across health-conscious preference dimensions, with modest associations among the least responsive households and more mixed patterns among high-consumption households. These findings underscore the importance of considering consumer heterogeneity in policy design and suggest that labeling policies could be complemented by targeted interventions to maximize their effectiveness.