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Measuring Willingness to Pay for Environmental Attributes in Seafood

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  • Villas-Boas, Sofia B
  • Hilger, James
  • Stevens, Andrew
  • Hallstein, Eric

Abstract

We investigate whether consumers are willing to pay for sustainability in seafood. To do this, we estimate a logit random utility model (RUM) of seafood purchases using a product-level scanner dataset from a quasi-experimental setting that includes data both before and after the implementation of a seafood advisory and sustainability label. Each seafood product is defined as a bundle of attributes, including price, species, and sustainability rating. The sustainability rating is communicated to consumers through the use of a color-based traffic light label system, where a color rating is assigned to each seafood stock-keeping unit. Combining a structural demand model with a difference-in-differences approach allows us to take advantage of the implementation of the labeling treatment in a subset of stores in the local retail chain to estimate consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for green, yellow, and red sustainability labels. We find that the addition of a yellow sustainability label negatively impacts consumer’s WTP for seafood products, however this simple average effect does not fully capture many independent underlying mechanisms, such as consumer preferences for wild-caught versus farmed products, and the color-distribution of available labeled products within a species, which are empirically explored. Additional results from a second stage generalized least squares regression of RUM product fixed effects on product characteristics indicate that consumers prefer selective harvest methods, wild caught seafood, and U.S. caught seafood.
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  • Villas-Boas, Sofia B & Hilger, James & Stevens, Andrew & Hallstein, Eric, 2016. "Measuring Willingness to Pay for Environmental Attributes in Seafood," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt6nh0g7fg, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
  • Handle: RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt6nh0g7fg
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    3. Wenzhi Ding & Ross Levine & Chen Lin & Wensi Xie, 2020. "Competition Laws, Norms and Corporate Social Responsibility," NBER Working Papers 27493, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Rui Albuquerque & Yrjö Koskinen & Chendi Zhang, 2019. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Risk: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(10), pages 4451-4469, October.
    5. Yefan Nian & Zhifeng Gao & Ruojin Zhao, 2023. "Are people's daily life habits consistent with their preference for food sustainability labels?," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 589-622, July.
    6. Ho, Ly & Bai, Min & Lu, Yue & Qin, Yafeng, 2021. "The effect of corporate sustainability performance on leverage adjustments," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(5).
    7. Giovanna Piracci & Fabio Boncinelli & Leonardo Casini, 2023. "Investigating Consumer Preferences for Sustainable Packaging Through a Different Behavioural Approach: A Random Regret Minimization Application," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(1), pages 1-27, October.

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