TY - JOUR
T1 - Consumer reaction to information on food additives
T2 - Evidence from an eating experiment and a field survey
AU - Aoki, Keiko
AU - Shen, Junyi
AU - Saijo, Tatsuyoshi
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Ito Foundation , the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (the COE program for Behavioral Macrodynamics based on Surveys and Experiments and the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas) and Experimental Social Sciences : Toward Experimentally-based New Social Sciences for the 21st Century Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas. We would also like to thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for providing useful comments on the article. All the views expressed in this paper and any errors are the sole responsibility of the authors. The assistance provided by Kenju Akai, Tomoki Ando, Chieko Fujisawa, Katsuhiko Nishizaki, and Kenta Onoshiro in conducting the experiment and the survey is also greatly appreciated.
PY - 2010/3
Y1 - 2010/3
N2 - Both the presence/absence of food additives and provision of accurate information pertaining to the same are considered to be important factors affecting individuals' purchase decisions. In this paper, we apply the choice experiment approach under both real (the laboratory experiment) and hypothetical (the field survey) environments to investigate how consumers value a food additive (sodium nitrite) present in ham sandwiches and whether the provision of information about sodium nitrite affects individuals' choice. The results suggest that in both real and hypothetical situations, participants do not favor the use of sodium nitrite, per se, regardless of whether or not the detailed information is provided. Moreover, the willingness to pay values for ham sandwiches without sodium nitrite are estimated to be lower in the experiment and higher in the survey after negative and positive information is provided, implying that the effect of information provision differs between these two environments. In addition, further investigation of the participants' reasons for choosing ham sandwiches indicates that the information related to flavor seems to have more influence on the consumers' choice behavior in a real situation, while the information associated with health risk is like to play a relatively more important role in a hypothetical situation.
AB - Both the presence/absence of food additives and provision of accurate information pertaining to the same are considered to be important factors affecting individuals' purchase decisions. In this paper, we apply the choice experiment approach under both real (the laboratory experiment) and hypothetical (the field survey) environments to investigate how consumers value a food additive (sodium nitrite) present in ham sandwiches and whether the provision of information about sodium nitrite affects individuals' choice. The results suggest that in both real and hypothetical situations, participants do not favor the use of sodium nitrite, per se, regardless of whether or not the detailed information is provided. Moreover, the willingness to pay values for ham sandwiches without sodium nitrite are estimated to be lower in the experiment and higher in the survey after negative and positive information is provided, implying that the effect of information provision differs between these two environments. In addition, further investigation of the participants' reasons for choosing ham sandwiches indicates that the information related to flavor seems to have more influence on the consumers' choice behavior in a real situation, while the information associated with health risk is like to play a relatively more important role in a hypothetical situation.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jebo.2009.11.007
DO - 10.1016/j.jebo.2009.11.007
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77549087065
VL - 73
SP - 433
EP - 438
JO - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
JF - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
SN - 0167-2681
IS - 3
ER -