Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Consumers' decisions about tradeoffs between food safety and quality: an experimental auction analysis of artisanal cheese

这项研究考察了个人如何在健康风险和产品质量之间进行权衡选择。在奶酪制造中，牛奶的巴氏杀菌可以根除可能导致疾病的病原菌和有益细菌，这些细菌有助于陈化奶酪的成熟和风味发展。这项研究通过分析个人对产品属性的享乐偏好评级、实验性拍卖和对美国手工奶酪市场零售数据的享乐价格分析等方法的组合，研究了消费者对细菌及其相关风险的态度以及消费者对有关食品安全和质量的不同类型信息的反应。独特的产品背景提供了一个机会，可以研究健康风险和产品质量变量之间的更持续的权衡，而不是以前的背景所允许的。这项研究产生了对粮食和农业政策制定者有用的信息。有建议要求奶酪制造商减少产品中的细菌，以降低健康风险，但这些新要求也可能会降低消费者心目中的产品质量。人工奶酪生产商来自不同的背景，是快速增长的农业经济部门的一部分，专注于当地生产、附加值和农贸市场。

The research examines how individuals make choices involving tradeoffs between health risk and product quality. In cheesemaking, pasteurization of milk can eradicate pathogenic bacteria that can cause illness as well as beneficial bacteria, which contribute to ripening and flavor development in aged cheese. This research studies consumers' attitudes toward bacteria and associated risk and how consumers respond to different types of information about food safety and quality through a combination of methods including analyzing individual hedonic preference rating of product attributes, experimental auctions, and hedonic price analysis of retail data in the market for artisan cheese in the US. The unique product context provides an opportunity to study a more continuous tradeoff between the variables of health risk and production quality than prior contexts have allowed. This research generates information useful for food and agriculture policymakers. There are proposals to require cheesemakers to reduce bacteria in their products in order to reduce health risks, but these new requirements might also reduce the quality of the products in the minds of consumers. Producers of artisenal cheeses come from a wide diversity of backgrounds and are part of a fast growing sector of the agricultural economy focusing on local production, value addition and farmers markets.