SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Wagstaff, James.

As evidenced by the recent release of a comprehensive Institute of Medicine report on seafood consumption and by the passage of the 2002 Farm Bill, it is clear that there is growing concern about the health benefits and risks of fish consumption. This research project was designed to analyze the seafood market in Amherst, Massachusetts, and, specifically, to explore the effectiveness of seafood product labeling provided by the largest retailers in the area. Studying the availability of seafood and the associated labeling practices reveals how the Amherst market meets the needs of different consumers. While each venue generally adheres to the regulatory requirements of seafood labeling, this research includes recommendations as to how the market might...

Can German Wine Cooperatives Compete on Quality?

Palavras-chave: Seafood; Country of Origin Labeling; Retail Availability; International Relations/Trade; Marketing; D12; L15; Q18.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/7388

Schamel, Guenter.

The German Agricultural Society (DLG) manages a multi-round annual quality control scheme where wines undergo a blind, sensory testing procedure using a 5-point scale to determine superior quality wines worthy of an annual award (Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Gold Extra). We develop a hedonic model for the 2005 award competition estimating implicit prices for different product attributes including sensory awards, quality categories, and wine style. We also control for regional origin, variety, color, and age. To discern the impact of ownership structure, we distinguish cooperatives and private wineries. Silver and Bronze awards show significant price effects relative to Gold. We also estimate highly significant price effects between quality categories (e.g....

Corporate and Consumer Social Responsibilities: Label Regulations in the Lab

Palavras-chave: Cooperatives; Product Quality; Pricing; Agribusiness; Demand and Price Analysis; Marketing; Q13; L15; D4.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/51552

Etile, Fabrice; Teyssier, Sabrina.

Although consumer attitudes toward corporate social responsibility are positive, socially responsible (SR) products are far from gaining significant market shares. Information asymmetries have been identified as one of the factor contributing to this attitude-behaviour gap, because social responsibility is a credence attribute. Signalling may remedy this market failure. We use an experimental posted offer market to investigate the impact of various regulatory requirements for labels on sellers’ choice to supply SR products and to signal it, and on buyers’ choice of ethical quality. Three treatments are tested: label certification by a third-party, “cheap-talk signalling” with random monitoring and with or without reputations. Individual social preferences...

Tipo: Presentation

Palavras-chave: Labels; Social responsibility; Social preferences; Separating equilibrium; Market game; Consumer/Household Economics; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Marketing; C92; D82; L15; M14.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/120399

Why do Firms Hold Oil Stockpiles?

ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PRIVATE FOOD STANDARDS

Mason, Charles F..

Persistent and significant privately-held stockpiles of crude oil have long been an important empirical regularity in the United States. Such stockpiles would not rationally be held in a traditional Hotelling-style model. How then can the existence of these inventories be explained? In the presence of sufficiently stochastic prices, oil extracting firms have an incentive to hold inventories to smooth production over time. An alternative explanation is related to a speculative motive - firms hold stockpiles intending to cash in on periods of particularly high prices. I argue that empirical evidence supports the former but not the latter explanation.

Tipo: Working Paper

Palavras-chave: Petroleum Economics; Stochastic Dynamic Optimization; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; Q2; D8; L15.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/120051

Giraud-Heraud, Eric; Grazia, Cristina; Hammoudi, Abdelhakim.

This paper provides an original theoretical framework to better understand the raise of private quality standards in agrifood chains. Reasons for the development and conditions for the effectiveness of private quality standards are identified, by investigating firms’ strategic behaviour and, more precisely, both interactions among processing/retailing firms and upstream producers and the role of consumers’ behaviour. Considering different levels of consumers risk perception, we show that the incentive for firms to develop a more stringent private standard may increase with the level of the regulated minimum quality standard. Moreover, setting a private standard may reduce the risk of consumer dissatisfaction while increasing the marketed quantity....

On food quality in domestic markets of developing economies

Palavras-chave: Private quality standards; Vertical relationships; Risk perception; Agricultural and Food Policy; Consumer/Household Economics; Demand and Price Analysis; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Food Security and Poverty; Health Economics and Policy; L1; L15; Q13; Q18.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/116408

Vandeplas, Anneleen; Minten, Bart; Swinnen, Johan F.M..

Food quality has become an important determinant of success in global food trade and growers for international markets have to continuously adjust to buyers’ requirements. It is however not clear to what extent there is a demand for food quality - and how much buyers are willing to pay for it - in the domestic food markets of developing economies. Based on unique price and trader data from domestic food markets in a poor country in Africa (Madagascar) and an emerging economy in Asia (India), we compare quality and quality’s pricing. We find significantly better quality and higher quality premia (using revealed as well as stated preference methods) in the richer country, probably leading to an impetus for the development of modern market channels in this...

The Greek Olive Oil Market Structure

Palavras-chave: Food quality; Quality premia; Development; Agricultural and Food Policy; Q12; Q13; L15.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/51700

Karipidis, Philippos I.; Tsakiridou, Efthimia; Tabakis, Nikolaos M..

Food product differentiation leads to significant price variations among the same products, meaning that specific products can be sold in higher prices. An Hedonic Price analysis is adopted to investigate the influence of food differentiation on consumer prices and to identify product attributes’ values for the olive oil market. This will con- tribute to device the most appropriate olive oil differentiation strategies in order to be purchased by consumers in a higher price. The retail price structure was estimated in relation to several product natural attributes, to production and processing conditions, to quality control and to labeling and distribution. Findings demonstrate that olive oil price differentiation is mainly influenced by...

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Differentiation structure; Hedonic prices; Olive oil market; Crop Production/Industries; Marketing; Q13; C23; L15; M31.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/44093

Quality Certification by Geographical Indications, Trademarks and Firm Reputation

Menapace, Luisa; Moschini, GianCarlo.

We study firm reputation as a mechanism to assure product quality in perfectly competitive markets in a context in which both certification and trademarks are available. Shapiro’s (1983) model of reputation is extended to reflect both collective and firm-specific reputations, and this framework is used to study certification and trademarks for food products with a regional identity, known as geographical indications (GIs). Our model yields two primary results. First, in markets with asymmetric information and moral hazard problems, credible certification schemes reduce the cost of establishing reputation and lead to welfare gains compared to a situation in which only private trademarks are available. Hence, certification improves the ability of reputation...

Eco-Labeling and the Price Premium

Palavras-chave: Asymmetric Information; Certification; Geographical Indications; Quality; Reputation; Environmental Economics and Policy; D23; D82; L14; L15; Q1.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/61778

Sedjo, Roger A.; Swallow, Stephen K..

International environmental and government organizations propose eco-labeling as a market incentive to cause industry to operate in an ecologically sustainable and biodiversity-friendly manner. A microeconomic analysis questions whether eco-labeling will cause producer profits in a competitive industry to decline, even under a voluntary system, and whether eco-labeling will necessarily generate different prices for labeled and unlabeled product. Using wood product as an example, results identify conditions that may exist when firms lose profits, even under a voluntary system, and where existing production constraints may lead to a single price, regardless of labeling.

Palavras-chave: Eco-labeling; Prices; Markets; Environmental Economics and Policy; D40; L10; L15.

Ano: 1999

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10826

How Cool is C.O.O.L.?

Dinopoulos, Elias; Livanis, Grigorios T.; West, Carol Taylor.

This paper develops a partial equilibrium model of a small open-economy producing and trading an unsafe product that is supplied by perfectly competitive producers. The presence of product safety considerations, in this case risks to health, introduces a wedge between the market prices producers receive and the higher risk-adjusted prices consumers respond to. The size of the wedge depends positively on the per-unit cost of illness and the proportion of unsafe units embodied in the parent risky product. The model is used to analyze the welfare effects of trade with and without a country-of-origin labeling (COOL) program. Assuming imports are less safe than domestic production, the welfare gains from trade in the absence of COOL are ambiguous and may...

Producer's choice of certification

Palavras-chave: Country-of-origin labeling; Protection; Product safety; Welfare; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; International Relations/Trade; F10; F13; L15.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/15658

Langinier, Corinne; Babcock, Bruce A..

Consumers are in general less informed than producers about the quality of agricultural goods. To reduce the information gap, consumers can rely on standards (labels, certifications, geographic indications) that insure quality and origin of the goods. However, these standards do not always fully reveal information. Some of them may just signal that the good is more likely to be of high quality. We investigate what kind of standards are most desirable for producers, and for society in general knowing that any system is costly to implement. One of our findings is that for intermediate values of certification costs, certification that fully reveals information makes high quality producers better off, but make the entire industry worse off. In this case, the...

DEVELOPMENT OF MANAGEMENT QUALITY SYSTEM FOR METALLURGICAL ENTERPRISE BASED ON BALANCED SCORECARD WITH LIMITING FACTORS

Palavras-chave: Asymmetric information; Certification; Clubs; Quality.; Consumer/Household Economics; L11; L15; D82; D71.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/19510

Pesin, Alexander; Salganik, Viktor; Ledneva, Galina.

The article considers inefficiency of the existing quality management systems (QMS) based on standards ISO series 9000. The authors offer integrated QMS with limiting factors on Balanced Scorecard. The Balanced Scorecard with limiting factors helps to efficiently direct process of continuous improvement and achieve top-priority criteria in quality management domain.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Management quality system; Priority operations in quality field; Theory of constrains; Balanced Scorecard.; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; L15.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/94589

Willingness-to-Pay for Calf Health Programs and Certification Agents

Schumacher, Tucker; Schroeder, Ted C.; Tonsor, Glynn T..

Cattle feeders want feeder cattle that have been weaned and preconditioned with a certified health program. Preconditioned calves perform more efficiently in the feedlot with lower morbidity and mortality. Health program claims, however, range from no claim to being USDA-certified. The value of health protocol certification may vary with certifying entity. Results from a choice experiment and survey of cattle feeders indicate preconditioning programs that include weaning, vaccinating against respiratory and clostridial/blackleg, and treating for parasites are worth on average $7.28/cwt to feedlots. Furthermore, a health program certified by USDA carries an additional value of $2.37/cwt on average.

Tipo: Article

Palavras-chave: Calf health programs; Calf preconditioning; Value of certification; Marketing; Q13; L15; D82.

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/123777

Productivity and Quality-Environmental Changes in Marketing Co-operatives: An Analysis on the Horticultural Sector

Galdeano-Gomez, Emilio; Cespedes-Lorente, Jose; Rodriguez, Manuel Rodriguez.

The object of the present paper is to analyse productivity incorporating quality-environmental changes in marketing co-operatives. Firstly, it reviews competitiveness factors in the current European agri-food market, especially in relation to the fruit and vegetables sector. Secondly, the productivity trend is studied empirically using nonparametric methods (Malmquist indices) and taking as reference panel data of Andalusian horticultural co-operatives for the period 1994-2001. For this purpose productivity is decomposed into technological change, efficiency and quality-environmental change. Additionally, the correlation of these results with other economic variables is analysed. The indicators obtained show a relevant increase in efficiency for the period...

Individual and Collective Reputation: Lessons from the Wine Market

Palavras-chave: Productivity; Quality-environment; Efficiency; Marketing co-operative; Horticultural sector; Agribusiness; Productivity Analysis; D24; Q13; Q21; L15.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/24698

Castriota, Stefano; Delmastro, Marco.

The concept of reputation has been used in every field of economic research, given its capacity to affect the outcome of all economic and financial transactions. The theoretical debate on reputation is very rich, but the mechanisms of reputation building have not been explored enough from the empirical viewpoint. In this paper we investigate the determinants of firm reputation taking into consideration the interactions between individual and collective reputation. This paper is one of the first attempts to provide robust evidence on the determinants of firm reputation using a large set of controls applied to a database not affected by self-selection bias. In fact, we constructed a new database containing the universe of wineries located in four regions of...

Food safety and nutritional quality – Firms’ strategies and Public intervention

Palavras-chave: Reputation; Credibility; Asymmetric information; Quality standards; Industrial Organization; L14; L15.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/45504

Hammoudi, Abdelhakim; Nguyen, Huong-Hue; Soler, Louis-Georges.

The aim of our paper is to determine the conditions under which firms tend to offer the best nutritional quality of food products, and the public regulation required to obtain this in a context where diet and nutritional status plays an important part in maintaining health and preventing disease, and with increasing pressure for public intervention on food quality in developed countries. To this end, we develop a duopoly model where products can be horizontally (variety) and vertically (quality) differentiated. We analyze the perfect Nash equilibriums in a two period competition game where in the first stage, the firms decide simultaneously on the variety and the quality of the product to be sold and in the second stage, firms set prices. The model...

Modern food retailers and traditional markets in developing countries: Comparing quality, prices, and competition strategies in Thailand

Palavras-chave: Nutritional product; Health cost; Public regulation; Vertical and horizontal differentiation.; Agricultural and Food Policy; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Industrial Organization; L13; L15; L51; Q18.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/51749

Schipmann, Christin; Qaim, Matin.

Supermarkets and hypermarkets are expanding rapidly in many developing countries. While consequences for farmers and consumers were analyzed recently, little is known about the implications for traditional retail formats such as wet markets. Using data from a market survey in Thailand and hedonic regression models, we analyze quality and prices for fresh vegetables from different retail outlets. Compared to wet markets, modern retailers sell higher quality at higher prices, indicating that they are primarily targeting better-off consumers. Hence, they are not directly competing for the same market segments. Yet there are signs that modern and traditional markets will gradually converge.

The Market for Used Cars: A New Test of the Lemons Model

Palavras-chave: Supermarkets; Modern retailers; Traditional wet markets; Product quality; Vegetables; Thailand; Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Demand and Price Analysis; C21; L15; Q13.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/108348

Emons, Winand; Sheldon, George.

The lemons model assumes that owners of used cars have an informational advantage over potential buyers with respect to the quality of their vehicles. Owners of bad cars will try to sell them to unsuspecting buyers while owners of good cars will hold on to theirs. Consequently, the quality of traded automobiles should be sub-average. In contrast to previous work, the following paper tests both the assumption of informational asymmetry and the prediction of sub-average traded car quality using a sample consisting of all 1985 cars registered in the Swiss canton of Basle-City over the period 1985-1991. Our data support both the assumption and the prediction of the lemons model. The lemons problem does not appear to be widespread, however. Das "Lemons"-Modell...

Welfare Effects of Mandatory Traceability When Firms are Heterogeneous

Palavras-chave: Adverse Selection; Used Car Market; Duration Models; Marketing; C41; D82; L15; L62.

Ano: 2002

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/26353

Pouliot, Sebastien.

We develop a framework in which the cost of producing a quantity food and the cost of food safety differs across firms. We show that large firms may supply the safest food even though small firms have a cost advantage in producing safe food. The model shows that mandatory traceability can decrease the overall safety of food when small firms that supply the safest food exit the industry. Our model applies to food safety but can be applied to a wide range of issues related to regulation and product quality.

Partial Implementation of COOL: Economic Effects in the U.S. Seafood Industry

Palavras-chave: Food safety; Quality; Traceability; Regulation; Industrial Organization; Marketing; Production Economics; D21; L11; L15; Q10.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/61017

Joseph, Siny; Lavoie, Nathalie; Caswell, Julie A..

Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (MCOOL) was implemented on seafood in the United States on April 4, 2005. MCOOL exempts the foodservice sector and excludes processed seafood from labeling. This paper contributes to understanding the economics of the MCOOL law for seafood by showing that current partial implementation may have unintended consequences on the domestic supply chain. While labeling satisfies the market demand for information provision in one market, exemptions in the other market may create incentives for the diversion of imports, which are assumed to be lower in quality than domestic seafood, to the non-labeled sector. Analyzing alternate scenarios such as voluntary labeling shows that total welfare may be greatest under this scenario...