Price(less) Behaviours: Behavioural Implications and Unexpected Consequences of Food and Sustainability Pricing Policies
hosted by Professor
Jessica Fanzo
Mario Mazzocchi
Professor of Economic Statistics, University of Bologna
Prices are not just numbers. They are signals, benchmarks, and contexts that shape what people buy and how they feel about doing so. The talk discusses what we mean by "the price" in real markets, where quality, promotions, bundles, and imperfect measurement mean the relevant price differs across consumers and situations. I then use this lens to examine behavioural responses to pricing policies such as taxes and subsidies. Beyond standard elasticities, choices are guided by reference prices, perceived fairness, loss aversion, mental accounts, and habits, so identical price changes can trigger very different reactions depending on salience and framing. These responses can generate substitutions across products, spillovers to other behaviours, and distributional effects that matter for food and sustainability policy design. The goal is to clarify when price tools work, when they misfire, and how to make them more effective.
MARIO MAZZOCCHI Mario Mazzocchi is Professor of Economic Statistics at the University of Bologna and Visiting Professor at Imperial Business School, London.
He previously held academic positions at the University of Reading, where he lectured in Applied Economics and Consumer Behaviour. His research focuses on consumer behaviour, health and food policy evaluation, and the application of statistical methods to public policy. He is a member of the Social Research Methods and Advice Working Group at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and has served as a consultant to the FAO and the European Commission on nutrition and public health policies.
Julie Norman is an Associate Professor (Teaching) in Politics and International Relations at University College London (UCL), has coordinated or contributed to numerous international research initiatives funded by the European Commission. He is the author of two books
Fat Economics, Oxford University Press;
Statistics for Marketing and Consumer Research, Sage, and has published extensively in leading international journals in applied economics, public health, and food policy. From 2014 to 2022, he was Co-Editor-in-Chief of
Food Policy.
