IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/midasp/11762.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Information As A Double-Edged Sword: The Economic And Welfare Consequences Of Certified Labeling For Credence Attributes

Author

Listed:
  • Hoehn, John P.
  • Deaton, Brady J., Jr.

Abstract

Certified labeling for credence attributes is examined using the concepts of pooled and separating equilibria. Credence attributes are product features that cannot be experienced directly by consumer, features such as pesticide-free, dolphin-safe, hormone-free, and organic. Without labeling, the traded good is a mix of credence and conventional goods. With certified labeling, the pooled market is replaced with separate markets for the credence and conventional good. Market outcomes are examined theoretically and with empirical simulations. Costless labeling is net welfare improving, but impacts are highly asymmetric. Credence producers gain largely at the expense of conventional producers. Costly labeling may reduce welfare even with rather modest labeling costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Hoehn, John P. & Deaton, Brady J., Jr., 2003. "Information As A Double-Edged Sword: The Economic And Welfare Consequences Of Certified Labeling For Credence Attributes," Staff Paper Series 11762, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:midasp:11762
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.11762
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/11762/files/sp03-12.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.11762?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cook, Roberta L., 2001. "Emerging Trade Practices And Trends In The Fruit And Vegetable Markets," Agricultural Outlook Forum 2001 33077, United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Outlook Forum.
    2. Calvin, Linda & Cook, Roberta L. & Denbaly, Mark & Dimitri, Carolyn & Glaser, Lewrene K. & Handy, Charles R. & Jekanowski, Mark D. & Kaufman, Phillip R. & Krissoff, Barry & Thompson, Gary D. & Thornsb, 2001. "U.S. Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Marketing: Emerging Trade Practices, Trends, and Issues," Agricultural Economic Reports 33915, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Golan, Elise H. & Kuchler, Fred & Mitchell, Lorraine, 2000. "Economics Of Food Labeling," Agricultural Economic Reports 34069, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    4. Teisl, Mario F. & Roe, Brian & Hicks, Robert L., 2002. "Can Eco-Labels Tune a Market? Evidence from Dolphin-Safe Labeling," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 339-359, May.
    5. Jeffrey R. Blend & Eileen O. van Ravenswaay, 1999. "Measuring Consumer Demand for Ecolabeled Apples," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1072-1077.
    6. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2002. "Information and the Change in the Paradigm in Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 460-501, June.
    7. Darby, Michael R & Karni, Edi, 1973. "Free Competition and the Optimal Amount of Fraud," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 67-88, April.
    8. Caswell, Julie A., 1998. "How Labeling of Safety and Process Attributes Affects Markets for Food," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 151-158, October.
    9. Roger A. Sedjo & Stephen K. Swallow, 2002. "Voluntary Eco-Labeling and the Price Premium," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 78(2), pages 272-284.
    10. Buzby, Jean C. & Ready, Richard C. & Skees, Jerry R., 1995. "Contingent Valuation In Food Policy Analysis: A Case Study Of A Pesticide-Residue Risk Reduction," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 27(2), pages 1-13, December.
    11. Brown, Mark G. & Lee, Jonq-Ying, 2002. "Restrictions On The Effects Of Preference Variables In The Rotterdam Model," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 34(1), pages 1-10, April.
    12. Huang, Kuo S. & Lin, Biing-Hwan, 2000. "Estimation of Food Demand Nutrient Elasticities from household Survey Data," Technical Bulletins 184370, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    13. Huang, Kuo S. & Lin, Biing-Hwan, 2000. "Estimation Of Food Demand And Nutrient Elasticities From Household Survey Data," Technical Bulletins 33579, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    14. John M. Crespi & St)phan Marette, 2001. "How Should Food Safety Certification be Financed?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 83(4), pages 852-861.
    15. Sedjo, Roger & Swallow, Stephen, 1999. "Eco-Labeling and the Price Premium," RFF Working Paper Series dp-00-04, Resources for the Future.
    16. Brown, Mark G. & Lee, Jonq-Ying, 2002. "Restrictions on the Effects of Preference Variables in the Rotterdam Model," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 17-26, April.
    17. Greene, Catherine R., 2001. "U.S. Organic Farming Emerges in the 1990s: Adoption of Certified Systems," Agricultural Information Bulletins 33777, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    18. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hoehn, John P. & Deaton, Brady J., Jr., 2004. "The Welfare Consequences Of Certified Labeling For Credence Attributes," Staff Paper Series 11758, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    2. Athearn, Kevin R., 2003. "Can Eco-Labeling Do More Harm Than Good? A Comparative Statics Analysis," 2003 Annual Meeting, February 1-5, 2003, Mobile, Alabama 35105, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    3. Crespi, John M. & Marette, Stephan, 2003. "Some Economic Implications Of Public Labeling," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 34(3), pages 1-12, November.
    4. Yokessa, Maïmouna & Marette, Stéphan, 2019. "A Review of Eco-labels and their Economic Impact," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 13(1-2), pages 119-163, April.
    5. Olivier Bonroy & Christos Constantatos, 2015. "On the Economics of Labels: How Their Introduction Affects the Functioning of Markets and the Welfare of All Participants," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(1), pages 239-259.
    6. McCluskey, Jill J., 2000. "A Game Theoretic Approach to Organic Foods: An Analysis of Asymmetric Information and Policy," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 1-9, April.
    7. Chung, Rebecca H. & Lee, Jonq-Ying & Brown, Mark G., 1998. "Incorporating Nutrients in Food Demand Analysis," Research papers 52824, Florida Department of Citrus.
    8. Deaton, Brady J., Jr. & Hoehn, John P., 2003. "Information As A Double-Edge Sword: Implications For Food Standards And Labels," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22235, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. Giovanni Anania & Rosanna Nisticò, 2004. "Public Regulation as a Substitute for Trust in Quality Food Markets: What if the Trust Substitute cannot be Fully Trusted?," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 160(4), pages 681-701, December.
    10. Roheim, Cathy A. & Johnston, Robert J., 2005. "A Battle of Taste and Environmental Convictions for Ecolabeled Seafood: A Choice Experiment," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19357, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    11. Jackson, Lee Ann, 2003. "Who Benefits from Quality Labelling? Segregation Costs, International Trade and Producer Outcomes," 2003 Conference (47th), February 12-14, 2003, Fremantle, Australia 57897, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    12. Douadia Bougherara & Virginie Piguet, 2008. "Marchés avec coûts d'information sur la qualité des biens : une application aux produits écolabellisés," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(1), pages 77-96.
    13. Nikolov, Bogomil & Vasileva, Elka & Ivanova, Daniela, 2011. "The information asymmetries and consumer policy issues in Bulgaria," MPRA Paper 50041, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Philippe Mahenc, 2017. "Honest versus Misleading Certification," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 454-483, June.
    15. Aditi Sengupta, 2010. "Signaling environmental quality to green consumers and the incentive to invest in cleaner technology: Effect of environmental regulation," Departmental Working Papers 1001, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.
    16. Mika Kortelainen & Jibonayan Raychaudhuri & Beatrice Roussillon, 2016. "Effects Of Carbon Reduction Labels: Evidence From Scanner Data," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1167-1187, April.
    17. Nilsson, Tomas K.H. & Foster, Kenneth A., 2005. "Certification of Pork Products," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19350, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    18. Hatanaka, Maki & Bain, Carmen & Busch, Lawrence, 2005. "Third-party certification in the global agrifood system," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 354-369, June.
    19. Olmos, Marta Fernández & Grazia, Cristina & Perito, Maria Angela, 2011. "Quality and Double Sided Moral Hazard in Share Contracts," Agricultural Economics Review, Greek Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 12(1).
    20. Schumacher, Ingmar, 2010. "Ecolabeling, consumers' preferences and taxation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 2202-2212, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Marketing;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:midasp:11762. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/damsuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.