Individual Attitudes on Food Quality and Safety: Empirical Evidence on EU Countries

Donatella Baiardi (), Riccardo Puglisi and Simona Scabrosetti
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Donatella Baiardi: Department of Economics and Management, University of Pavia

No 14, DEM Working Papers Series from University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management

Abstract: What are the determinants of individual attitudes on food? Focusing on EU citizens, we provide a first systematic answer to this question by using the 2010 Eurobarometer Special Survey on risk perception. Since respondents are asked about various features of food consumption, we check to what extent a specific demographic or socio-economic variable is differentially correlated with those features. We find that women show an higher risk aversion than men, given their attention on freshness, calories and safety. The same holds for more educated, higher income individuals and respondents living with children. Occupational status does not play a relevant role in food preferences, except for prices. We deal with potential response bias by using as dependent variable the difference between each response on a given food attribute and the average response on the other ones. We also perform a principal component analysis to identify the underlying patterns which drive individual responses.

Keywords: individual attitudes; food safety; food quality; Eurobarometer 73.5 Special Survey on Risk Perception (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 K32 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2012-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pav:demwpp:014

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