Yale University

The Demand Function of Consumer Willingsness to Pay for Safer Food Products

I'm writing my senior essay in econ on consumer behavior with respect to international meat. I've designed a survey that tries to determine whether consumers are willing to pay for safer food products, and if so, why? (For those of you who have taken econ classes, I'm estimating a demand function and incorporating a risk premium, and I'm trying to produce a regression equation with some explanatory variables. Explanatory variables include education, children, income, nationality, age, consumption behaviors, and a few others. Maybe parents with kids might want to pay more for safer foods, or people with less money or less education might not be willing to pay a premium for safer foods. etc.) I'm also trying to quantify the negative effects of news of meat contamination. It might be the case that people aren't necessarily willing to pay more for safer international food, but won't buy food from a particular country if they have a bad track record. While there have been many studies about standards for particular companies in the US and consquences for particular companies in the US after contamination, no studies have examined the "branding" effect for a country on an international basis. Depending on my data, it might be beneficial for governments to oversee exports of international foods to protect the industry on a wider basis.