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Willingness to Pay for Low Water Footprint Food Choices During Drought

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  • Hannah Krovetz
  • Rebecca Taylor
  • Sofia Villas-Boas
Abstract
In the context of recent California drought years, we investigate empirically whether consumers are willing to pay for more efficient water usage in the production of four California agricultural products. We implement an internet survey choice experiment for avocados, almonds, lettuce, and tomatoes to elicit consumer valuation for water efficiency via revealed choices. We estimate a model of consumer choices where a product is defined as a bundle of three attributes: price, production method (conventional or organic), and water usage (average or efficient). Varying the attribute space presented to consumers in the experimental choice design gives us the data variation to estimate a discrete choice model—both conditional logit specifications and random coefficient mixed logit specifications. We find that on average consumers have a significant positive marginal utility towards water-efficiency and estimate that there is an implied positive willingness to pay (WTP) of about 12 cents per gallon of water saved on average. Moreover, informing consumers about the drought severity increases the WTP for low water footprint options, but not significantly. We find that there is heterogeneity in the WTP along respondents' education, race, and also with respect to stated environmental concern. Our findings have policy implications in that they suggest there to be a market based potential to nudge consumers who want to decrease their water footprint and follow a more sustainable diet, namely, by revealing information on the product's water footprint in a form of a label. Simulations of removing low water footprint labels from the choice set attributes imply significant consumer surplus losses, especially for the more educated, white, and more environmentally concerned respondents.

Suggested Citation

  • Hannah Krovetz & Rebecca Taylor & Sofia Villas-Boas, 2017. "Willingness to Pay for Low Water Footprint Food Choices During Drought," NBER Working Papers 23495, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23495
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    2. Kari E. R. Heerman & Ian M. Sheldon, 2022. "Sustainable agricultural production, income, and eco‐labeling: What can be learned from a modern Ricardian approach?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(4), pages 1614-1636, December.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q21 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • M30 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - General

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