Stated Willingness-to-Pay for Organic Fruit and Pesticide Ban

Abstract

Income growth in highly industrialised countries has resulted in consumer choice of foodstuffs no longer being primarily influenced by basic factors such as price and organoleptic features. From this perspective, the present study sets out to evaluate how and to what extent consumer choice is influenced by the possible negative effects on health and environment caused by the consumption of fruit containing deposits of pesticides and chemical products.

The study describes the results of a survey which explores and estimates consumer willingness to pay in two forms: a yearly contribution for the abolition of the use of pesticides on fruit, and a premium price for organically grown apples guaranteed by a certified label. The same questionnaire was administered to two samples. The first was a conventional face-to-face survey of customers of large retail outlets located around Bologna (Italy); the second was an Internet sample. The discrete choice data were analysed by means of probit and tobit models to estimate the utility consumers attribute to organically grown fruit and to a pesticide ban. The research also addresses questions of validity and representativeness as a fundamental problem in web-based surveys.     

客户偏好指标和银行渠道使用对应分析研究

随着商业银行竞争的日趋激烈,银行营销渠道在其经营发展中地位日益明显。由于不同渠道其服务范围和条件、成本和效益有明显的区别,同时,客户不同的行为偏好对于不同渠道的应用也存在差异,所以,商业银行客户偏好分析就成为银行渠道发展策略的首要任务和出发点。在介绍相关理论基础上,建立商业银行客户偏好分析的框架,提出了客户偏好分析指标体系,最终利用实际调研数据对客户偏好指标和银行渠道进行分析,得到偏好指标和渠道之间的对应关系,对国内商业银行如何利用客户偏好分析方法实施差异化策略提出方法和建议。     

Combining ecological and recreational aspects in national park management: A choice experiment application

Increasing pressure to diversify development of national parks emphasizes the need for new and relevant information for park management decisions. In this paper, we use choice experiment to value different tradeoffs that evolved in park development scenarios. Specifically, we examine which kind of development profiles are worth considering and which paths not to follow. We focus on biodiversity and recreational services provided by Oulanka National Park in Finland, which represents a popular recreation site attracting a large number of visitors. The increase of biodiversity was the most highly valued feature by the respondent national park visitors. Thus, our results show that the protection of biodiversity and recreational and tourism use of national parks can cause conflicting welfare effects if managed in inappropriate ways. Increasing the number of visitors, expanding present resting places, constructing new resting places and an intense increase in information boards, especially if combined with shrinking biodiversity, are welfare reducing managerial actions in national parks.     

Production risk,risk aversion and the determination of risk attitudes among Spanish rice producers

Agricultural production is subject to risk and the attitudes of producers toward risk will influence input choices insofar as these affect production risk. Risk attitudes in turn may be affected by certain socioeconomic characteristics of producers. Using 2004 survey data from a cross‐section of 130 Spanish rice farms, we estimate risk‐aversion coefficients of farmers and investigate the influence of a series of socioeconomic variables on their risk attitudes. Our results show that farmers exhibit risk‐averse behavior and that risk attitudes are related to a series of socioeconomic characteristics. In particular, the belief that the farm will continue after the producer retires is found to increase the degree of risk aversion, while age is found to have nonlinear effects on risk aversion. Off‐farm income, especially from nonagricultural activities, is found to reduce risk aversion. Neither the educational level of the producer nor the presence of dependents on the household is found to have an effect on risk preferences. Regarding the production technology, we find that land, labor, and fitosanitary products are risk‐reducing inputs, whereas capital, seeds, and fertilizer all increase risk.     

A contribution to the assessment of scenic quality of landscapes based on preferences expressed by the public

The purpose of this paper is to validate a model for predicting the public's preference for a landscape using simple statistical techniques. The model assigns numerical values to 42 landscape variables grouped into physical, aesthetic and psychological attributes. The landscape value is obtained using an additive value function. The results of the model on certain landscapes are compared with the preference expressed by the public in a survey of 183 people.The homogeneity of the survey responses was checked in each photograph. It was determined that means and standard deviations of the scores represent the true preference.A strong positive association was observed between preference and certain landscape attributes such as expression, soil use or colour. A marked negative association was detected with respect to landscape alterations.A linear regression was carried out to analyse the predictive capacity of the model. The independent variable was the global score assigned by the model to each photograph and the dependant variable was the mean of the scores assigned by the survey respondents. The high level of correlation obtained indicates that the model is a good predictor of the public's preferences in relation to the set of photographs shown in the survey.To complete the analysis of the model as a preference predictor, a multiple linear regression was carried out between the mean score obtained in the survey and the model elements. Attributes and variables that have the greatest influence on pubic preference were detected.     

Time orientation and construal level: effects on eating and exercising behaviour and preferences

Eating and exercising behaviour are both characterized by immediate and future consequences. Consequently, consideration of these consequences (i.e. time orientation) predicts eating and exercising behaviour. We investigate whether construal level acts as an underlying mechanism of these relations. Students (N = 101) completed measures of consideration of immediate and future consequences (i.e. CFC‐food and CFC‐exercise), construal level, eating and exercising behaviour and preferences. For self‐reported eating and exercising behaviour, only direct effects of consideration of immediate and future consequences were found. For eating preferences, however, there was evidence of an indirect effect through construal level. A stronger tendency to consider future consequences led to a stronger preference for utilitarian (as compared with hedonic) food products through a more abstract construal level. All in all, construal level partially explains the differential relations between consideration of immediate and future consequences and eating and exercising behaviour and preferences.     

Consumer sorting and hedonic valuation of wine attributes: exploiting data from a field experiment

This article uses a novel experimental approach to measure consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for wine attributes. We invited customers of a local supermarket who had selected a bottle of wine to purchase to participate in a valuation experiment. Integrating their original wine choice into the experiment, each participant evaluated six alternative wines, generating a rich set of data on willingness to pay and consumer characteristics. The data from the experiment allow us to compare standard shelf price‐based wine attribute valuation estimates with estimates using WTP data and an increasing amount of information about individual consumers. The full model employs individual fixed effects to estimate WTP parameters without bias from consumer sorting or supply side influences. Our WTP estimates for wine attributes differ markedly from previous attribute value estimates. Consumers in our sample display clear and stable preferences for wine varieties, but less clear preferences for appellations. Our results suggest caution is needed in using market prices to estimate parameters of the consumer valuation function for product attributes.     

Food Away from Home Expenditures in the United States

This study investigates the factors affecting food away from home expenditures in the United States using county level data. Results generally indicate that counties with higher labor force participation rate of women, higher number of college graduates, higher number of employed individuals, higher number of females, and higher number of whites and AsianslPacific Islanders as well as counties with lower number of hispanics and lower number of family households spend more on food away from home than others.     

Aspects of profitability that influence smallholder cash-crop preferences in northern Mozambique

This study analyses profitability in terms of relationships between various aspects, indicators and cash-crop cultivation preferences. Both financial and pragmatic aspects of profitability were found to be related to cash-crop preferences. Apart from the need to promote a crop with a good farm gate price and to reduce production and marketing costs, promoters need to strengthen the wider system by supporting profitability as well as household consumption requirements. The correlation between indicators of expected profitability improved as more financial and pragmatic aspects were incorporated. Smallholder farmers' rankings of profitability correlated better with cash-crop preferences when the analysis incorporated more aspects of profitability. In addition, the results indicated the institutional support needed to improve the profitability of cash crops. This simple method of identifying smallholder preferences for one cash crop among many is of paramount importance in the design of strategies for improving agricultural market participation.     

Strategy-Proof Probabilistic Decision Schemes for One-Dimensional Single-Peaked Preferences

Collective decision problems are considered with a finite number of agents who have single-peaked preferences on the real line. A probabilistic decision scheme assigns a probability distribution over the real line to every profile of reported preferences. The main result of the paper is a characterization of the class of unanimous and strategy-proof probabilistic schemes with the aid of fixed probability distributions that play a role similar to that of the phantom voters in H. Moulin (Public Choice35 (1980), 437-455). Thereby, the work of Moulin (1980) is extended to the probabilistic framework. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D71, D81.