Jeitschko, Thomas D. and Pecchenino, Rowena A. (2007) Do you want fries with that? An exploration of serving size, social welfare, and our waistlines. Economic Inquiry, 44 (3). pp. 442-450. ISSN 0095-2583

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Abstract

In the debate over increasing obesity rates, fingers are often pointed at "big food" and their marketing practices. It is noted that restaurant meals are often larger than home-cooked meals and that portion sizes in restaurants have dramatically increased over the past few years. We investigate the issue by considering "socially optimal" -- rather than decentralized profit maximizing -- portions in restaurants to see whether welfare maximizing strategies may also be waistline-increasing. We demonstrate that "socially optimal" restaurant meals are larger in size than average home-cooked meals and, while many agents chose to "super-size", the option of super-sizing actually alleviates the size discrepancy between home-cooked and restaurant meals. Moreover, "socially optimal" portion sizes at home and in restaurants increase with relative reductions in the marginal costs and/or relative increases in the fixed costs of meal preparation. Given this cost structure, when offered fries a greater proportion of the population will answer with an enthusiastic "yes"!

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Preprint version of original published article. The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.com (DOI: 10.1093/ei/cbj036)
Keywords:	obesity; serving size; social welfare; public health policy;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics, Finance and Accounting
Item ID:	2800
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1093/ei/cbj036
Depositing User:	Prof. Rowena Pecchenino
Date Deposited:	26 Oct 2011 14:37
Journal or Publication Title:	Economic Inquiry
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell
Refereed:	No
URI:	http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1...
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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