Consumer valuation of health attributes in food

Sinne Smed and Lars Hansen

No 122730, 2012 AAEA/EAAE Food Environment Symposium from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: In modern societies it seems that the pleasures of taste often encourage the consumption of fatty, salty and sweet foods, whereas growing health awareness discourages consumption of the same foods. Numerous studies find that education and diet healthiness are highly correlated and one possible explanation is that consumers with a longer education are better at understanding and appreciating the health implication of their diet than are consumers with a short education. In this study we estimate a hedonic model of consumer’s valuation of food characteristics that allows nutrients to influence utility both through their perceived effects on health and their effects on the taste of food. The model is estimated using purchase data from a consumer panel with comprehensive coverage of food purchases for 2500 Danish households. We find that it is differences in taste valuations, rather than differences in valuation of health effects, that explains the observed differences in dietary healthiness across consumers with different educational backgrounds.

Keywords: Food; Consumption/Nutrition/Food; Safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-mkt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/122730/files/A ... AttributesInFood.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Consumer Valuation of Health Attributes in Food (2018)
Working Paper: Consumer valuation of health attributes in food (2016)
Working Paper: Consumer valuation of health attributes in food (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaeafe:122730

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.122730

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2012 AAEA/EAAE Food Environment Symposium from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().