Certification of Origin and Brands Competition

We analyse the competition in quality and quantity between a foreign firm and a domestic firm. The domestic firm can belong to a certification of origin, whereas its rival uses a pure brand strategy. We will show how the certification can allow the domestic firm to position itself as a high quality producer and improve the average quality of the products offered on the market. If, however, the certified firm offers the low quality good, the certification can permit it to guarantee a higher profit than that of its competitor and to improve the consumers' surplus by favouring product standardisation.Certification of origin, Quality, international competition, Demand and Price Analysis, L13, F12, F14,

Agrifood safety standards, market power and consumer misperceptions

This paper analyzes how the implementation of a food safety standard affects firms strategic behaviour within the context of a food chain. We provide a formal analysis, which considers that the sanitary risk results from a strong heterogeneity of upstream production conditions and the final demand depends on consumers risk estimations (given that consumers may underestimate or, conversely, overestimate the sanitary risk). We show how downstream (processing or retailing) firms may be prompted to play a positive role with respect to food safety, either by selecting only the safest upstream producers or by encouraging the improvement of suppliers production conditions. When the degree of consumers risk misperception is relatively low, then a downstream firm may adopt the latter strategy and increase the marketed quantities as the food safety standard is improved. However, we show that the actual contamination risk is not necessarily decreasing in the level of the food safety standard.food safety standards, market power, risk misperception, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Minimum Quality Standards and brand development in agrifood chains

This paper develops an original framework to better understand the interaction between the development of brands and the quality of raw materials. We consider different levels of consumer trust for a brand and we examine the incentive for firms to improve the quality of a processed product by requiring that upstream suppliers adopt a private standard. In contrast to previous literature, the incentive for firms to develop a more stringent private standard may increase with the level of the regulated minimum quality standard. Moreover, the creation of a private standard can reduce the risk of consumer dissatisfaction while increasing the marketed quantity. Unexpected positive effects of a reinforcement of the minimum quality standard may arise, in the sense that both market access for upstream producers and consumer surplus are improved and final price may decrease with respect to simply complying with the regulation.Minimum Quality Standard, brand, vertical relationship, Agribusiness,

Retailer-led Regulation of Food Safety : Back to Spot Markets?

At the end of the 1990s European retailers had significantly contributed to restructuring fresh agricultural product food chains (meat, fruit and vegetables), and had turned away from spot markets in order to create their own supply chains, based on private technical requirements and verification systems usually managed from within the firm. However, over the last few years a second type of system has appeared, as the range of standards adopted by retailers has been broadened to include generic standards common to several retailers. A telling example of this new approach is provided by the EUREPGAP protocol. In this paper we propose a theoretical analysis of this new procedure and its possible impacts.food safety, spot markets, retailer, supply chain, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Resistant grape varieties and market acceptance: An evaluation based on experimental economics

We analyze consumers' evaluations of white wines from resistant varieties, produced in the Languedoc winegrowing region of France (2016 vintage). We use the results from a laboratory experiment performed in Paris in June 2017, where a panel of more than one hundred and sixty consumers, regular buyers of this type of wine, were asked to evaluate a wine of the Bouquet 3159 grape variety (monogenic variety resistant to mildew and powdery mildew and optimized for quality) and compare it with two conventional wines of different quality levels, and with a certified organic wine of similar type and price. The environmental and health performances and the production methods of the different wines were quantified according to several indicators: Treatment frequency indicator (TFI) and pesticide residue analysis. The consumers first evaluated the wines after tasting, having been given only a minimum amount of information about the region of origin and the vintage, then again after receiving information on production methods and the levels of our indicators. The method used to lend credibility to individual valuations used experimental economics, via a mechanism based on direct disclosure of their willingness to pay (maximum purchase price for a bottle of wine according to available information). The results showed that, on a purely sensory level, consumers had difficulty in accepting wine from a resistant variety. We were then able to see that communication focusing on environmental and health performances very much improved the position of the resistant variety of wine, putting it ultimately at the top of the average qualitative evaluations. In economic terms, we show that this promotion results in high market share, gained from conventional wines. Market share losses were lower, however, for the premium conventional wine, suggesting that the higher quality wines would be less directly challenged by wines produced from resistant varieties

Observing the Evolution of the Universe

How did the universe evolve? The fine angular scale (l>1000) temperature and polarization anisotropies in the CMB are a Rosetta stone for understanding the evolution of the universe. Through detailed measurements one may address everything from the physics of the birth of the universe to the history of star formation and the process by which galaxies formed. One may in addition track the evolution of the dark energy and discover the net neutrino mass. We are at the dawn of a new era in which hundreds of square degrees of sky can be mapped with arcminute resolution and sensitivities measured in microKelvin. Acquiring these data requires the use of special purpose telescopes such as the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), located in Chile, and the South Pole Telescope (SPT). These new telescopes are outfitted with a new generation of custom mm-wave kilo-pixel arrays. Additional instruments are in the planning stages.Comment: Science White Paper submitted to the US Astro2010 Decadal Survey. Full list of 177 author available at http://cmbpol.uchicago.ed

Travaux de prospective sur I'adaptation de la viticulture au changement climatique : quelles series d'evenements pourraient favoriser differentes strategies d'adaptation ?

multidisciplinary group of researchers and experts of public bodies working on the French wine sector met together to elaborate a foresight exercice with the construction of the plausible ways leading to four different adaptation strategies to climate change of the French wine sector to climate change. For the implementation of this work, the group, considered a single climatic scenario and difined four strategies of adaptation incorporating both geographical mobility and of integration of technological changes, used assumptions from three sources: assumptions from researchers of various disciplines in their own disciplinary field, pre-existing assumptions from former foresight works and assumptions defined according to the statements of actors of the sector on the impacts of climate change and on the possible methods of adaptation. All these assumptions were written in the form of simple sentences, giving one version and its contrary. The various assumptions were selected and then combined between them in order to create a blend within the disciplinary fields, without however inferring of orientation. The result of this work is the join-construction of four plausible ways each one leading to one of the four preselected strategies of adaptation: "conservative" strategy where the evolutions are limited, a "nomade" strategy where the relocalisation of the vineyards is the main vector of adaptation, an "innovating" strategy where the adaptation is the result of the systematic integration of innovations, and finally towards a "liberal" strategy largely opened to any kind of changes. These ways and strategies are not supposed to give a predictive image of the future. However while proposing possible or plausible futures, this work provides material which could be debated within the sector, without immediate challenges that could possibly bias the discussion From the expression of the challenges and consequences of the various ways and strategies in which they result, the actors of the French wine sector will be able to start a strategic reflection. The presentation will be focused on the description of the four ways leading to adaptation strategies and their elaboration. Methodology is specified in another article "Adaptation to the climate change: interest of a prospective approach", same authors

Signaler la qualité par les prix : le cas des bouteilles de vin

International audienceEn partant de l'exemple fourni par la commercialisation du vin, les auteurs proposent une formulation de la question du signal de la qualité par le prix sur ce type de marché. Les auteurs considèrent au départ qu'une part non négligeable de consommateurs ne connaît pas, avant l'achat, la qualité exacte du vin qu'ils achètent (achat en grandes et moyennes surfaces (GMS), par correspondance...) et que le vin peut dans ce cas être considéré comme un bien d'expérience. Trois paramètres importants sont retenus dans la modélisation : l'hétérogénéité des goûts des consommateurs, la réputation du vin mis en vente et la proportion de consommateurs informés de la qualité. Puis, ils montrent alors pourquoi le signal de la qualité par le prix peut toujours être effectué via une majoration de celui-ci (le prix est supérieur à celui que l'on obtiendrait en information complète). Les producteurs préfèrent ainsi perdre des consommateurs en rehaussant leur prix de vente et cela afin d'être reconnus en tant que "bon producteur". Si la réputation de la propriété joue un rôle important sur les résultats (le coût lié au signal est plus faible si la réputation est élevée), la proportion de consommateurs informés qui peut être accrue par certains type de commercialisation (vente à la propriété, chez un caviste,...) n'est pas déterminante pour le producteur

Politiche dell'offerta e sistemi di organizzazione della filiera vitivinicola DOC : un confronto europeo : introduzione

International audienc