Consumer trust and willingness to pay for certified animal-friendly products

Giuseppe Nocella (), Lionel Hubbard () and Riccardo Scarpa ()
Additional contact information
Giuseppe Nocella: University of Bologna, http://www.unibo.it/
Lionel Hubbard: University of Newcastle, http://www.ncl.ac.uk

Working Papers in Economics from University of Waikato, Department of Economics

Abstract: Increasing animal welfare standards requires changes along the supply chain which involve several stakeholders: scientists, farmers and people involved in transportation and slaughtering. The majority of researchers agree that compliance with these standards increases costs along the livestock value chain, especially for monitoring and certifying animal-friendly products. Knowledge of consumer willingness to pay (WTP) in such a decision context is paramount to understanding the magnitude of market incentives necessary to compensate all involved stakeholders. The market outcome of certification programs is dependent on consumer trust. Particularly, there is a need to understand to what extent consumers believe that stakeholders operating in the animal-friendly supply chain will respect certification standards. We examine these issues using a contingent valuation survey administered in five economically dominant EU countries. The implied WTP estimates are found to be sensitive to robust measures of consumer trust for certified animal-friendly products. Significant differences across countries are discussed.

Keywords: Animal welfare; Certification; Consumer trust; Contingent Valuation; Willingness to Pay; Budget approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q26 H41 C25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
Date: 2007-05-28

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