Willingness to Pay for “Taste of Europe”: Geographical Origin Labeling Controversy in China
Willingness to Pay for “Taste of Europe”: Geographical Origin Labeling Controversy in China
复制标题
为“欧洲味道”付费的意愿：中国原产地标签争议
DOI：
10.1108/bfj-11-2016-0580
复制
发表时间：
2017
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
Jiangyuan Fu
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chenguang Li;J. Bai;Zhifeng Gao;Jiangyuan Fu
目的
新兴市场的持续经济增长为全球生产商和营销商提供了巨大的市场机遇；然而，当高质量产品进入消费者认知率较低的这些“新市场”时，由于信息不对称导致的市场失灵现象经常出现。使用“地理原产地”标签作为质量信号以克服信息不对称问题起着重要作用。本文的目的是比较消费者对不同层次地理原产地标签的认知和支付意愿（WTP），以便为在新兴市场中战略性地使用原产地标签提供见解。
设计/方法/途径
2015年5月在中国北京针对进口乳制品的地理标签进行了一项消费者调查。在“欧盟（EU）产品”范围内，作者以“爱尔兰产品”作为特定国家原产地标签的案例研究。通过307次面对面访谈收集了有关消费者人口统计信息、乳制品消费情况、安全认知、对爱尔兰及爱尔兰产品的了解，以及对不同地理标签和产品属性的支付意愿等信息。采用双边界条件价值评估法获取支付意愿，并使用最大对数似然函数进行估计。
研究结果
作者发现消费者愿意为这两种地理原产地标识支付溢价，但欧盟标签的支付意愿结果略高。然而，有争议的情况是，尽管欧盟标签在向中国消费者传达优质信号方面比特定国家标签更有优势，但欧盟标签充其量只能表明欧盟各国的平均质量。对于质量高于平均水平的优质产品，使用通用的欧盟标签对于产品差异化的建立存在潜在弊端。
创新性/价值
本研究首次评估了中国消费者对乳制品欧盟通用原产地标签与特定国家原产地标签相比的支付意愿。研究结果对新兴市场具有直接的政策和营销启示。
Purpose
Continuing economic growth in emerging markets offers large market opportunities to producers and marketers worldwide; however, market failures due to asymmetric information are often seen when high-quality products enter these “new markets” where recognition rates among consumers are low. The use of “geographical origin” labels as quality signals to overcome asymmetric information problem plays an important role. The purpose of this paper is to compare consumers’ perception and willingness to pay (WTP) for different levels of geographic origin labels to provide insights to the strategic use of origin labels in emerging markets.
Design/methodology/approach
A consumer survey on geographic labeling for imported dairy products was carried out in Beijing, China in May 2015. Under the “products of European Union (EU)” range, the authors used “product of Ireland” as a case study for the country-specific origin label. Information on consumer demographic, dairy consumption, safety perceptions, knowledge on Ireland and Irish products, as well as WTP for different geographic labeling and product attributes were collected from 307 face-to-face interviews. WTP was elicited using double-bounded contingent valuation method, and estimated with maximum log-likelihood function.
Findings
The authors found that consumers are willing to pay premium prices for both of these geographical origin indicators, but the EU label had slightly higher WTP results. However, the controversial situation is that although the EU label has a better chance than the country-specific label in signaling premium quality to Chinese consumers, EU labeling at its best signals an average quality across the EU counties. For premium products with above average quality, using generic EU labeling has a potential drawback to the establishment of product differentiation.
Originality/value
This study is the first to evaluate Chinese consumers’ WTP for EU generic origin label for dairy products in comparison to country-specific origin label. Findings of the study have immediate policy and marketing implications in emerging markets.