Edi Defrancesco

The price premium for wine quality signals: does retailers' information provision matter?

Purpose – This research aims to explore whether quality signals, such as grape variety names explicitly used by “quality wines produced in specified regions”, affect wine retail prices in different ways in large‐scale retail and specialised shops.Design/methodology/approach – Tocai wine, which is produced in Northeastern Italian regions and is involved in a dispute with the Hungarian geographical indication Tokaj, is taken as a case study. A hedonic price model has been estimated based on retail prices observed in local markets.Findings – The research shows that consumers buying at large‐scale retailers are willing to pay a higher price premium for quality signals than those buying in specialised shops, ceteris paribus. For the latter, willingness to pay for quality signals is reduced by the information provided by the specialised shop retailer, which decreases the customers uncertainty about wine quality; quality signals appearing on wine labels generally have a more relevant positive effect on wine pri...

The Beginning of Organic Fish Farming in Italy

Italian demand for organic products is rapidly increasing, yet there is currently no supply of certified organic marine-fish. Moreover, over recent years marine fish farm profitability has been reduced because of competition from imported products. A pilot project was carried out in order to: a) define standards for organic marine fish farming; b) evaluate production costs in four farms, experimenting semi-extensive organic fish farming under proposed standards (seabream, Sparus aurata and seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax); c) estimate the potential demand for certified organic marine fish and consumer willingness to pay in order to figure out the profitability of a product differentiation strategy. This paper shows the economic results for production costs at the farm level and potential demand. The latter has been estimated using survey-data of 6,877 consumers by means of a questionnaire-interview carried out during an experimental organic marine fish promotion sale. Results show that organic marine fish farming could be a good market opportunity for some Italian fish farmers by improving consumer information on organic products, adopting a supply concentration strategy at the farm level and carefully managing semi-extensive-farming set up by proposed regulations.

Individual Travel Cost Method and Flow Fixed Costs

The paper proposes an approach for evaluating the effect of flow fixed costs on the evaluation of environmental benefits with travel cost method. On a full annual perspective when recreational users incur relevant annual direct fixed expenses, their behaviour could be influenced by them. The approach introduces a) the notion of the minimal number of annual visits that justifies the annual fixed expenses incurred by the user and b) a method to estimate it. The estimate of this minimal number permits to forecast the user behaviour on a full annual perspective, taking into account a more accurate estimate of the number of visits at different additional fees.

From Niche to Market: the Growth of Organic Business in Italy

In last decade the organic agriculture has steadily increased, especially in EU countries where many scandals have boosted organic food consumption. Italy is still the first EU country as organic land and farms but Italian organic consumption is lower than other EU members. Actually, the Italian organic agriculture growth has been accomplished by EU grants which have moved organic market out of its niche size. More recently, supermarket chains have also shown a growing interest for organic market, but export still accounts for a great share of Italian organic production. The growth of organic agriculture has been investigated at the micro-level showing organic farm structure and organization features such as size, type of production, technology employed, and farmers characteristics such as age, education, etc., using Census data. Results about organic agriculture in the Veneto Region show that competitiveness of organic farms is strictly associated with EU grants.

Potential Demand for Organic Marine Fish in Italy

Italian demand for organic products is rapidly increasing, yet there is currently no supply of certified organic marine-fish. Moreover, in recent years marine fish farm profitability has been reduced because of competition from imported products. A pilot project was carried out in order to: a) define standards for organic marine fish farming; b) evaluate production costs in four farms, experimenting semi-extensive organic fish farming under proposed standards (seabream, Sparus aurata and seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax); c) estimate the potential demand for certified organic marine fish and consumer willingness to pay in order to figure out the profitability of a product differentiation strategy. This paper shows the economic results for production costs at the farm level and potential demand. The latter has been estimated using survey-data of 6,877 consumers by means of a questionnaire-interview carried out during an experimental organic marine fish promotion sale. Results show that organic marine fish farming could be a good market opportunity for some Italian fish farmers by improving consumer information on organic products, adopting a supply concentration strategy at the farm level and carefully managing semi-extensive-farming set up by proposed regulations.