Are Consumers Color Blind?: an empirical investigation of a traffic light advisory for sustainable seafood

Eric Hallstein and Sofia Villas-Boas

No 120535, CUDARE Working Papers from University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Abstract: This paper empirically investigates consumer response to a traffic light advisory for environmentally sustainable seafood, which was implemented in the seafood department of a regional supermarket chain in the United States. Green meant 'best choice'; yellow meant 'proceed with caution'; red meant 'worst choice'. Using a unique product-level panel scanner data set capturing sales information for 2 treatment stores and 8 nearby control stores, we apply a difference-in-differences identification strategy to estimate the impact of color-coded labels on consumers' purchases. We find that the advisory leads to no significant difference in total seafood sales. Green sales significantly increase an average of 29% per week; yellow sales significantly decrease an average of 27% per week; red sales show no significant difference in sales. Green products on a mercury safe list had the greatest increase in sales whereas yellow products not on the mercury safe list had the largest drop in sales.

Keywords: Consumer/Household; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37
Date: 2009-07-31
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/120535/files/CUDARE%201088%20Villas-Boas.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Are Consumers Color Blind? An Empirical Investigation of a Traffic Light Advisory for Sustainable Seafood (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:ucbecw:120535

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.120535

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