What is in a Name? Information, Heterogeneity, and Quality in a Theory of Nested Names

Jianyu Yu (), Zohra Mechemache and Angelo Zago

American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2018, vol. 100, issue 1, 286-310

Abstract: Collective labels are widespread in food markets, and are either separated or nested with private brands—the latter are known as “nested names”. We propose a model to explain the rationale of nested names, with collective labels being effective in reaching unaware consumers, while individual brands help firms to reach aware consumers. We also incorporate decision-making within the group of producers joining collective labels, taking into account their heterogeneity in providing quality. We show that nested names emerge when consumers become more aware of information on the label’s quality, as well as when producers become more heterogeneous. Welfare may decrease, however, when the group switches to nested names because they may lead to lower quality incentives for the majority of producers. Our results also provide insights into the historical and recent trends in food industries, such as within-label differentiation and label fragmentation, as well as their respective welfare implications.

Keywords: Nested names; individual brands; collective labels; consumers’; awareness; producer heterogeneity; quality provision (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ajae/aax067 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: What's in a Name? Information, Heterogeneity, and Quality in a Theory of Nested Names (2017)
Working Paper: What’s in a Name? Information, Heterogeneity, and Quality in a Theory of Nested Names (2016)
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:oup:ajagec:v:100:y:2018:i:1:p:286-310.

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Agricultural Economics is currently edited by Madhu Khanna, Brian E. Roe, James Vercammen and JunJie Wu

More articles in American Journal of Agricultural Economics from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().