Abstract
High-profile cases of exploitative labour practices have increased concerns over agricultural working conditions. However, it is unclear to what extent the public is willing to trade-off fair working conditions for higher prices. We implement a large-scale survey in Greece to uncover consumer preferences for a food labelling system that certifies fair working conditions for the workers employed in agricultural production. With our most conservative estimates, we find that consumers are willing to pay an average premium of 53 cents of a Euro per 500 g, 95 per cent CI [43.9, 62.3], for strawberries with fair labour certification. This result suggests that consumers do value the better treatment of workers in the agricultural sector. It also suggests that there is a current market failure, created by the asymmetry of information between consumers and producers, that can be the basis of discussion for alternative labelling schemes involving fair labour labels. We also tested a number of known biases associated with consumer behaviour or the contingent valuation method and found the positive willingness-topay result to be robust.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 455-474 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | European Review of Agricultural Economics |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2017 Jul 1 |
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Keywords
- cheap talk
- consequentiality
- contingent valuation
- equivalent loss
- fair labour label
- inferred valuation
- uncertainty scale
- willingness-to-pay
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous)
- Economics and Econometrics
Cite this
Consumer preferences for fair labour certification. / Drichoutis, Andreas C.; Vassilopoulos, Achilleas; Lusk, Jayson L.; Nayga, Jr, Rodolfo M.
In: European Review of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 44, No. 3, 01.07.2017, p. 455-474.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Consumer preferences for fair labour certification
AU - Drichoutis, Andreas C.
AU - Vassilopoulos, Achilleas
AU - Lusk, Jayson L.
AU - Nayga, Jr, Rodolfo M.
PY - 2017/7/1
Y1 - 2017/7/1
N2 - High-profile cases of exploitative labour practices have increased concerns over agricultural working conditions. However, it is unclear to what extent the public is willing to trade-off fair working conditions for higher prices. We implement a large-scale survey in Greece to uncover consumer preferences for a food labelling system that certifies fair working conditions for the workers employed in agricultural production. With our most conservative estimates, we find that consumers are willing to pay an average premium of 53 cents of a Euro per 500 g, 95 per cent CI [43.9, 62.3], for strawberries with fair labour certification. This result suggests that consumers do value the better treatment of workers in the agricultural sector. It also suggests that there is a current market failure, created by the asymmetry of information between consumers and producers, that can be the basis of discussion for alternative labelling schemes involving fair labour labels. We also tested a number of known biases associated with consumer behaviour or the contingent valuation method and found the positive willingness-topay result to be robust.
AB - High-profile cases of exploitative labour practices have increased concerns over agricultural working conditions. However, it is unclear to what extent the public is willing to trade-off fair working conditions for higher prices. We implement a large-scale survey in Greece to uncover consumer preferences for a food labelling system that certifies fair working conditions for the workers employed in agricultural production. With our most conservative estimates, we find that consumers are willing to pay an average premium of 53 cents of a Euro per 500 g, 95 per cent CI [43.9, 62.3], for strawberries with fair labour certification. This result suggests that consumers do value the better treatment of workers in the agricultural sector. It also suggests that there is a current market failure, created by the asymmetry of information between consumers and producers, that can be the basis of discussion for alternative labelling schemes involving fair labour labels. We also tested a number of known biases associated with consumer behaviour or the contingent valuation method and found the positive willingness-topay result to be robust.
KW - cheap talk
KW - consequentiality
KW - contingent valuation
KW - equivalent loss
KW - fair labour label
KW - inferred valuation
KW - uncertainty scale
KW - willingness-to-pay
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U2 - 10.1093/erae/jbx002
DO - 10.1093/erae/jbx002
M3 - Article
VL - 44
SP - 455
EP - 474
JO - European Review of Agricultural Economics
JF - European Review of Agricultural Economics
SN - 0165-1587
IS - 3
ER -