Consumer preferences for fair labour certification

Drichoutis, Andreas C. and Vassilopoulos, Achilleas and Lusk, Jayson and Nayga, Rodolfo M. (2015): Consumer preferences for fair labour certification.

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 to uncover consumer preferences for a food labeling system that certifies fair working conditions for the workers employed in agricultural production. We test for several methodological issues with respect to value elicitation and predictions of reference dependent theory. With our most conservative estimates, we find that consumers are willing to pay an average premium of 53 cents per 500 gr, 95\% CI [43.9, 62.3], for strawberries with fair labour certification.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: fair labor label; willingness to pay; equivalent loss; contingent valuation; inferred valuation; consequentiality; cheap talk; uncertainty scale
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C8 - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology ; Computer Programs > C83 - Survey Methods ; Sampling Methods; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C93 - Field Experiments; D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing ; Cooperatives ; Agribusiness

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