Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Research Publications

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Parents' Demand for Sugar Sweetened Beverages for Their Pre-School Children: Evidence from a Stated-Preference Experiment

Yang, O ; Sivey, P ; de Silva, AM ; Scott, A (Oxford University Press (OUP), 2020-03-01)

Consumption of sugar sweetened beverages exhibits strong associations with weight gain, obesity, and dental caries, especially in young children. The aim of this article is to estimate price elasticities for parents' sugar-sweetened beverages consumption choices with respect to their pre-school children and to estimate elasticities with respect to nutritional attribute labels across sugar-sweetened beverages. Our results show that 1% increase in the price of fizzy drink, juice and cordial would reduce pre-school children's consumption of each drink by 0.80%, 0.51%, and 0.34% respectively. Such price effects on children's consumption do not substantially differ between high and low-income respondents but the effect on the children's Fizzy Drink consumption is significantly larger for respondents from large households than those from small households and are significantly lower than the price effects on the consumption of the rest of the family for Juice and Cordial. The marginal effects of demand with respect to nutritional attribute labels of sugar-sweetened beverages matter for Juice and Cordial, and are strongest for low-income families; however, these effects do not substantially differ between large and small-household respondents.