Consumer Demand for the Fair Trade Label: Evidence from a Multi-Store Field Experiment
Review of Economics and Statistics, Forthcoming
Formerly: MIT Political Science Department Research Paper No. 2011-9B
59 Pages Posted: 4 Apr 2011 Last revised: 26 Mar 2014
Date Written: March 2014
Abstract
We provide new evidence on consumer demand for ethical products from experiments conducted in a U.S. grocery store chain. We find that sales of the two most popular coffees rose by almost 10% when they carried a Fair Trade label as compared to a generic placebo label. Demand for the higher priced coffee remained steady when its price was raised by 8%, but demand for the lower priced coffee was elastic: a 9% price increase led to a 30% decline in sales. While consumers attach value to ethical sourcing, there is significant heterogeneity in willingness to pay for it.
Keywords: consumer behaviour, field experiments
JEL Classification: C93, D12, D64, M14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
By Frank Dobbin and John R. Sutton
-
Does Monitoring Improve Labor Standards?: Lessons from Nike
By Richard Locke, Fei Qin, ...
-
Offside! Labour Rights and Sportswear Production in Asia
By Tim Connor and Kelly Dent
-
By Richard Locke, Matthew Amengual, ...
-
By Richard Locke and Monica Romis
-
By Richard Locke and Monica Romis
-
By Richard Locke and Hiram M. Samel