IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/113924.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The organic food price premium and its susceptibility to news media coverage: Evidence from the U.S. milk industry

Author

Listed:
  • Gayle, Philip
  • Wang, Jin
  • Fang, Shengnan

Abstract

This paper investigates the extent to which media coverage on organic dairy issues influences consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the organic attribute of milk. We find that news with contents most often viewed as negative toward organic dairy are more powerful in decreasing consumers’ WTP for the organic attribute of milk compared to the positive WTP impact of news articles with contents most often viewed as positive toward organic dairy. Interestingly, consumers' increasing exposure to organic dairy news that even take a neutral stance on the organic attribute also increases their WTP for the organic attribute.

Suggested Citation

  • Gayle, Philip & Wang, Jin & Fang, Shengnan, 2022. "The organic food price premium and its susceptibility to news media coverage: Evidence from the U.S. milk industry," MPRA Paper 113924, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:113924
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/113924/1/MPRA_paper_113924.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pauline M. Ippolito & Alan D. Mathios, 1990. "Information, Advertising and Health Choices: A Study of the Cereal Market," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(3), pages 459-480, Autumn.
    2. Wolfram Schlenker & Sofia B. Villas-Boas, 2009. "Consumer and Market Responses to Mad Cow Disease," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1140-1152.
    3. repec:ags:jrapmc:122316 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Aviv Nevo, 2003. "New Products, Quality Changes, and Welfare Measures Computed from Estimated Demand Systems," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 266-275, May.
    5. Katz, Michael & Campbell, Benjamin & Liu, Yizao, 2019. "Local and Organic Preference: Logo versus Text," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(2), pages 328-347, May.
    6. Kiesel Kristin & Villas-Boas Sofia B, 2007. "Got Organic Milk? Consumer Valuations of Milk Labels after the Implementation of the USDA Organic Seal," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-40, April.
    7. Mario F. Teisl & Nancy E. Bockstael & Alan Levy, 2001. "Measuring the Welfare Effects of Nutrition Information," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 83(1), pages 133-149.
    8. 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.
    9. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    10. Céline Bonnet & Zohra Bouamra-Mechemache, 2016. "Organic Label, Bargaining Power, and Profit-sharing in the French Fluid Milk Market," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 98(1), pages 113-133.
    11. Jay Shimshack, 2004. "Are Mercury Advisories Effective? Inofrmation, Education, and Fish Consumption," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0423, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    12. Kiesel Kristin & Villas-Boas Sofia B, 2007. "Got Organic Milk? Consumer Valuations of Milk Labels after the Implementation of the USDA Organic Seal," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-40, April.
    13. Steven T. Berry, 1994. "Estimating Discrete-Choice Models of Product Differentiation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 242-262, Summer.
    14. Ginger Zhe Jin & Phillip Leslie, 2003. "The Effect of Information on Product Quality: Evidence from Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 409-451.
    15. Schlenker, Wolfram & Villas-Boas, Sofia, 2009. "AJAE appendix for ‘Consumer and Market Responses to Mad-Cow Disease’," American Journal of Agricultural Economics APPENDICES, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1-12, March.
    16. Kiesel, Kristin & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2013. "Can information costs affect consumer choice? Nutritional labels in a supermarket experiment," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 153-163.
    17. Shimshack, Jay P. & Ward, Michael B. & Beatty, Timothy K.M., 2007. "Mercury advisories: Information, education, and fish consumption," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 158-179, March.
    18. Kiesel, Kristin, 2012. "“A Definition at Last, But What Does it All Mean?” Newspaper Coverage of Organic Food Production and its Effects on Milk Purchases," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 37(1), pages 1-24, April.
    19. Roe, Brian E. & Teisl, Mario F., 1998. "The Economics Of Labeling: An Overview Of Issues For Health And Environmental Disclosure," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 27(2), pages 1-11, October.
    20. David Buschena & Vincent Smith, 2005. "Do Voluntary Biotechnology Labels Matter to the Consumer? Evidence from the Fluid Milk Market," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(2), pages 378-392.
    21. Pedro A. Alviola & Oral Capps, 2010. "Household demand analysis of organic and conventional fluid milk in the United States based on the 2004 Nielsen Homescan panel," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 369-388.
    22. Mathios, Alan D, 2000. "The Impact of Mandatory Disclosure Laws on Product Choices: An Analysis of the Salad Dressing Market," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(2), pages 651-677, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Smoluk-Sikorska, Joanna, 2023. "Price Relations of Organic and Conventional Fruit and Vegetables," Roczniki (Annals), Polish Association of Agricultural Economists and Agribusiness - Stowarzyszenie Ekonomistow Rolnictwa e Agrobiznesu (SERiA), vol. 2023(4).
    2. Capps, Oral & Wang, Lingxiao, 2024. "U.S. Household Demand System Analysis for Dairy Milk Products and Plant-Based Milk Alternatives," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343575, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    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. James Hilger & Eric Hallstein & Andrew W. Stevens & Sofia B. Villas-Boas, 2019. "Measuring Willingness to Pay for Environmental Attributes in Seafood," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(1), pages 307-332, May.
    2. Kiesel, Kristin, 2012. "“A Definition at Last, But What Does it All Mean?” Newspaper Coverage of Organic Food Production and its Effects on Milk Purchases," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 37(1), pages 1-24, April.
    3. Villas-Boas, Sofia B & Taylor, Rebecca & Krovetz, Hannah, 2016. "Willingness to Pay for Low Water Footprint Food Choices During Drought," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt9vh3x180, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    4. repec:ags:jrapmc:122316 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Villas-Boas, Sofia B & Kiesel, Kristin, 2007. "Got Organic Milk? Consumer Valuations of Milk Labels after the Implementation o f the USDA Organic Seal," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt5593m46q, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    6. Kiesel Kristin & Villas-Boas Sofia B, 2007. "Got Organic Milk? Consumer Valuations of Milk Labels after the Implementation of the USDA Organic Seal," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-40, April.
    7. Hallstein, Eric & Villas-Boas, Sofia Berto, 2009. "Are Consumers Color Blind?: an empirical investigation of a traffic light advisory for sustainable seafood," CUDARE Working Papers 120535, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    8. Hallstein, Eric & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2013. "Can household consumers save the wild fish? Lessons from a sustainable seafood advisory," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 52-71.
    9. Allais, Olivier & Etilé, Fabrice & Lecocq, Sébastien, 2015. "Mandatory labels, taxes and market forces: An empirical evaluation of fat policies," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 27-44.
    10. Villas-Boas, Sofia B & Bonnet, Celine & Hilger, James, 2017. "RUM, WINE, and EXPERTS," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt160178v4, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    11. Kiesel, Kristin, 2008. ""A Definition at Last, but What Does It All Mean?"—Newspaper Coverage of the USDA Organic Seal and its Effects on Food Purchases-," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6351, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Kiesel, Kristin & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2009. "Can Information Costs Confuse Consumer Choice?---Nutritional Labels in a Supermarket Experiment," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt6st6d0rr, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    13. Qizhong Yang & Keiichiro Honda & Tsunehiro Otsuki, 2019. "Structural demand estimation of the response to food safety regulations in the Japanese poultry market," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 9(3), pages 367-385, September.
    14. Maximilian Koppenberg, 2023. "Markups, organic agriculture and downstream concentration at the example of European dairy farmers," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 54(2), pages 161-178, March.
    15. Lin, Wen & Ma, Baojie & Liang, Jiangyuan & Jin, Shaosheng, 2024. "Price response to government disclosure of food safety information in developing markets," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    16. Sofia B. Villas‐Boas & Céline Bonnet & James Hilger, 2021. "Random Utility Models, Wine and Experts," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(2), pages 663-681, March.
    17. Seth Freedman & Melissa Kearney & Mara Lederman, 2012. "Product Recalls, Imperfect Information, and Spillover Effects: Lessons from the Consumer Response to the 2007 Toy Recalls," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 499-516, May.
    18. Rosa Ferrer Zarzuela & Helena Perrone, 2017. "Consumers’ costly responses to product-harm crises," Economics Working Papers 1571, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    19. Chantal Toledo & Sofia Berto Villas-Boas, 2019. "Safe or Not? Consumer Responses to Recalls with Traceability," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 519-541, September.
    20. Zhu, Chen & Huang, Rui, 2014. "Heterogeneity in Consumer Responses to Front-of-Package Nutrition Labels: Evidence from a Natural Experiment?," Working Papers 27, University of Connecticut, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Charles J. Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Organic Food; Organic Price Premium; Newspaper Coverage; Milk Industry;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • M30 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - General
    • Q00 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:113924. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.