Nudging À La Carte – A Field Experiment on Food Choice

Abstract

We test the effect of framing of a menu on the choice of ordering climate friendly dishes in a randomized controlled experiment. Rearranging the menu in favor of vegetarian food has a large and significant effect on the willingness to order a vegetarian dish instead of meat. We show that there exists a considerable marginal group willing to change meat consumption behavior at least in the short term. Our results demonstrate both to policy makers and to actors in the food service sector that small, cheap interventions can significantly decrease carbon emissions from food consumption.

Keywords: Nudging, Field experiment, default, food choice

JEL Classification: D12, Q50, C93