No abstract

Food scares ha ve increased consumer food safety concern, particularly for beef.Traceability and food quality labels have been put in place to communicate to consumers the safety characteristics of the specially labelled beef in hopes of recovering confidence and consumption. As a consequence, production costs have increased, and thereby consumer prices as well. In this paper we develop a conceptual model capable of analysing the main factors influencing consumers' willingness to pay for certified beef. A three-equation recursive model is jointly estimated which accounts for the main steps in the consumer decision process. Results indicate that income, level of beef consumption, the average price consumers pay for beef and the perception of beef safety are the main determinants of Spanish consumers' willingness to pay for certified beef.

SUMMARYOur paper seeks to assess the decision to adopt organic farming practices. More specifically, we use Duration Analysis (DA) to determine why farmers adopt organic farming and the timing of adoption. We extend previous studies by including farmers' objectives, risk preferences and agricultural policies as covariates in the DA model. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used as a multi-criteria decision-making methodology to measure farmers' objectives. The empirical analysis uses farm-level data collected through a questionnaire to a sample of vineyard farms in the Spanish region of Catalonia. Farmers' objectives are found to influence the conversion decision. Moreover, farmers who are not risk averse are more prone to adopt organic farming.Results also identify the policy changes that have been more relevant in motivating adoption of organic practices.

Examines and compares wine attribute preferences within and between two different Spanish regions, Aragón and Navarra, by means of the weighted least squares approach for conjoint analysis. Uses three attributes in the conjoint design: price, origin and grape vintage year. Among these attributes, Navarra consumers assigned more importance to the origin of the wine, followed by price and grape vintage year. Aragón consumers also considered origin as the most important attribute, followed, in this case, by grape vintage year and price. Comparing the different attribute levels, consumers from Aragón preferred locally produced and cheaper wines, while consumers from Navarra preferred Rioja and more expensive wines. Identifies and characterizes four wine consumer segments. Describes how a market simulation experiment was designed to simulate market shares of three alternative wine profiles.

There is some agreement in the food policy literature in that inception of genetic modification (GM) techniques in food production conveys both opportunities an risks which are found to differ across heterogeneous populations. One of the major limitations of previous research on perceptions of risk lies in taking into account food values and trust in information sources in a way that causality is accounted for. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the behavioural process that drives individual's perceptions to GM food using an empirical choice methodology that corrects for endogeneity in decision making relationships, namely Structural EquationModelling. We undertake an empirical application in three specific Mediterranean countries, namely Spain, Italy and Greece. Our first major finding indicates that public attitudes toward GM food are being formed from a reasoning mechanism that departs from trust in science and in public authorities, ultimately determining consumer's final purchasing decisions. Our second important finding suggests marked differences in the reasoning mechanism that lead to the acceptance of GM food in the three countries examined.