Assessing Consumer Preferences for Country-of-Origin Labeling

Abstract

In this paper, we assess consumer willingness to pay for a mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) program applied to beef ribeye steaks, chicken breasts, and pork chops, all labeled as “Certified U.S.” products. A consumer survey was mailed in spring and early summer 2003 to households in the continental United States. Results indicate that consumers are in general very concerned about food safety issues, viewing U.S. meat as the safest among the selection of countries considered. Nevertheless, consumer willingness to pay for Certified U.S. products is relatively small, although above the expected implementation costs associated with a mandatory labeling program. This finding coincides with the fact that only 36% of the sample favored consumers paying directly for the costs related to a mandatory COOL program.

Willingness to pay and political support for a US national clean energy standard

“…[14,15,16] Our approach is consistent with the literature that seeks to explain Congressional votes based on the median voter, including recent work that considers the benefits of power sector environmental policies. [17,18,19] While the approach is also consistent with other studies that estimate WTP for goods specified in bills that subsequently become law, [20,21,22] a novel extension of our work is the use of benefit estimates combined with the median voter model to simulate political outcomes.…”

The effects of brand origin country and made-in country on consumers’ product evaluations and purchase intention

“…Table 6 indicates that made-in country has significant influence on consumer's product quality evaluation, which is consistent with most studies in the literature. In traditional country of origin studies, most researchers focused on the effect of country of origin on consumer's product quality evaluation (Bilkey and Nes, 1982); and little research was conducted on the effect on consumer's purchase intention (Loureiro and Umberger, 2003). This research fills this gap.…”

On the economic nature of consumers’ willingness to pay for a selective and sustainable fishery: A comparative empirical study

“…First, we wanted to tackle an understudied problem in the literature (see Nunes and Shokkaert 2003) and to assess how and (how much) ideological issues affect the formation of reservation prices in non-market goods settings, where the monetary value of preferences is (with many methodological and theoretical caveats) stated and not revealed by consumption choices as in the marketplace. Second, we wanted to add an original piece of research by using an empirical modelling strategy unlike that of other studies (see Olesen et al 2010, Loureiro and Umberger 2003, Brecard et al 2009, among the others), in which WTP is mostly modelled and estimated using linear models and/or as univariate/multivariate probabilistic specifications.…”