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Field
Trial Title
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Before
What makes food policy acceptable? Package design, true-cost information, and public support in Switzerland
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After
From Accounting to Acceptance: How “True Costs” Framings Affect Support for Public Policy
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Field
Abstract
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Before
Food systems have far-reaching impacts that result in public health costs and environmental damage which are not reflected in retail prices, but are borne implicitly by society. True Cost Accounting has emerged as a framework for making these costs visible, and is increasingly invoked to justify food policies that mitigate and internalize the public health and environmental health costs in food prices. Yet operationalization of true cost food policies to date has focused almost entirely on consumers- on true-cost labels and true pricing at the point of purchase - while a central element of its proposed theory of change remains untested: whether communicating these costs to the public affects support for the policy instruments that would mitigate and internalize the true cost of food in practice. On 27 September 2026, Swiss citizens vote on the «Initiative für eine sichere Ernährung (Ernährungsinitiative)», which calls for greater domestic food self-sufficiency and a shift toward plant-based production and consumption. This pre-registered study leverages that vote to examine what makes true cost food policy acceptable to voters along two dimensions: how a policy is designed, and what people know about the problem it addresses. In the second wave of a two-wave online survey with approximately 2,200 eligible Swiss voters, participants are randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a neutral control, a qualitative description of the food system's health and environmental impacts, or the same description with those impacts quantified as costs in Swiss francs per person per year. Following treatment, participants rate seven food policy measures individually and then evaluate policy packages in a conjoint experiment in which each measure varies in stringency and revenues from these measures vary in their use. This design allows us to estimate which policy package design features drive acceptability, whether true-cost information raises support for policy instruments, and, exploratorily, whether any such effect operates by correcting mistaken beliefs. The study speaks to literatures on policy packaging, information provision, and the political feasibility of food systems transformation.
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After
Food systems have far-reaching impacts that result in public health costs and environmental damage which are not reflected in retail prices, but are borne implicitly by society. True Cost Accounting has emerged as a framework for making these costs visible, and is increasingly invoked to justify food policies that reduce public health and environmental costs. Yet operationalization of true cost food policies to date has focused almost entirely on consumers - on true cost labels and true pricing at the point of purchase - while a central element of its proposed theory of change remains untested: whether communicating these costs to the public affects support for the policy instruments that would mitigate and internalize the true cost of food in practice. On 27 September 2026, Swiss citizens vote on the «Initiative für eine sichere Ernährung (Ernährungsinitiative)», which calls for greater domestic food self-sufficiency and a shift toward plant-based production and consumption. This pre-registered study leverages that vote to examine what makes true cost food policy acceptable to voters along two dimensions: how a policy is designed, and what people know about the problem it addresses. In the second wave of a two-wave online survey with approximately 2,200 eligible Swiss voters, participants are randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a neutral control, a qualitative description of the food system's health and environmental impacts, or the same description with those impacts quantified as costs in Swiss francs per person per year. Following treatment, participants rate seven food policy measures individually and then evaluate policy packages in a conjoint experiment in which each measure varies in stringency and revenues from these measures vary in their use. This design allows us to estimate which policy package design features drive acceptability, whether true-cost information raises support for policy instruments, and, exploratorily, whether any such effect operates by correcting mistaken beliefs. The study speaks to literatures on policy packaging, information provision, and the political feasibility of food systems transformation.
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Field
Last Published
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Before
September 09, 2026 03:44 PM
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After
September 30, 2026 11:26 AM
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Field
Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
1) Package acceptability ratings. Respondents rate each package on a 7-point Likert scale. Unlike the forced choice, this is an absolute rather than relative judgement and therefore supports estimation of a treatment main effect on package acceptability.
2) Referendum acceptance. After each choice task, respondents indicate whether they would accept their chosen package in a popular vote. This provides an absolute measure of support that maps onto the institutional setting in which the study is embedded.
3) Perceived effectiveness and perceived importance. Two 7-point items measure whether respondents consider a levy on high-impact foods effective in reducing the environmental and health burden of the food system, and how important they consider it that policy accounts for food costs not reflected in retail prices. Both items are worded so as to be self-contained and equally interpretable in all three arms.
4) Beliefs about hidden costs. Respondents estimate the environmental and health costs of the Swiss food system not included in retail prices, in Swiss francs per person per year, using an open numeric field. Beliefs are elicited before randomisation and again after the conjoint, using the same scope and units with lightly varied surface wording. A bracketed fallback is displayed only to respondents declining the numeric field.
5) Placebo belief. Respondents estimate public spending per person per year on culture, in both the pre- and post-treatment blocks. The treatment is not expected to affect this quantity.
6) Perceived credibility of the information. Respondents rate how credible they find the text presented to them, on a 7-point Likert scale, in all three conditions. It is reported descriptively and used to interpret the treatment effects.
7) Comprehension. One single-best-answer item per arm, matched across arms on number of response options, placed after the information treatment. Analysis is intention-to-treat; comprehension is reported descriptively and used only in a pre-specified secondary analysis restricted to respondents answering correctly.
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After
1) Package acceptability ratings. Respondents rate each package on a 7-point Likert scale. Unlike the forced choice, this is an absolute rather than relative judgement and therefore supports estimation of a treatment main effect on package acceptability.
2) Referendum acceptance. After each choice task, respondents indicate whether they would accept their chosen package in a popular vote. This provides an absolute measure of support that maps onto the institutional setting in which the study is embedded.
3) Perceived effectiveness and perceived importance. Two 7-point items measure whether respondents consider a levy on high-impact foods effective in reducing the environmental and health burden of the food system, and how important they consider it that policy accounts for food costs not reflected in retail prices. Both items are worded so as to be self-contained and equally interpretable in all three arms.
4) Beliefs about hidden costs. Respondents estimate the environmental and health costs of the Swiss food system, in Swiss francs per person per year, using an open numeric field. Beliefs are elicited after randomization. A bracketed fallback is displayed only to respondents declining the numeric field.
5) Placebo belief. Respondents estimate public spending per person per year on culture, in the post-treatment block. The treatment is not expected to affect this quantity.
6) Perceived credibility of the information. Respondents rate how credible they find the text presented to them, on a 7-point Likert scale, in all three conditions. It is reported descriptively and used to interpret the treatment effects.
7) Comprehension. One single-best-answer item per arm, matched across arms on number of response options, placed after the information treatment. Analysis is intention-to-treat; comprehension is reported descriptively and used only in a pre-specified secondary analysis restricted to respondents answering correctly.
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