Limits to Behavioural Consumer Law and Policy: The Case of EU Alcohol Labelling

Limits of the implementation of findings from behavioural science into law and policy are increasingly recognized in the literature. In this contribution, we analyse the example of alcohol nutrition labelling to show the potential and the limits of how behavioural science can be meaningfully used to inform policy makers. We first explain what we understand to be proxies for the limit of the implementation of behavioural science into policy. Subsequently we illustrate how alcohol nutrition labelling is currently regulated and survey the on-going policy process, including an analysis of the self-regulatory proposals that have been tabled by the alcohol beverages industry. We then survey and apply existing consumer studies. Our research shows that behavioural insights support stronger alcohol nutrition labelling at a general level. However, the different options of labelling are currently understudied and provide an insufficiently sound empirical basis for policy making.