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• Consumer preference for food intrinsic and extrinsic attributes in the food service sector

In the wake of the supermarket revolution, consumer concerns over food safety in China have resulted in an accelerated change towards the procurement of food products from modern retail channels. We employ discrete choice experiments to assess consumer preferences for food quality attributes across various retail channels using primary data from Beijing, China. Results suggest that consumer willingness to pay for food safety is retail channel invariant, while preferences for organic and Green Food certification are product and retail channel specific. We find evidence of emerging consumer preferences for animal welfare attributes. Implications for food retail managers and agribusinesses are discussed.

The increasing share of imported food in developed countries, such as the U.S. and European Union countries, poses new challenges for food safety and quality regulators. China, as the world's biggest food producer, has the fastest growing share of fish and shellfish exports to these countries. While there have been an increasing number of studies conducted on consumer demand for various food product attributes, little research has focused on producer behavior, and studies on Chinese food producers are especially absent in the literature. The objective of this study is to assess Chinese aquaculture producers' willingness-to-change (WTC) and adopt certain production practices related to food safety. Producer preferences for enhanced food safety measures, and sustainable/eco-friendly production practices are assessed using a choice experiment. Primary data was collected in the leading aquaculture producing provinces of southern China. The average net income per farmer of our sample was 81,286 RMB/year of which approximately 72% originated from their aquaculture operation. Derived WTC estimates from a random parameters logit model suggest that the representative Chinese producer would require a 2.49% premium per jin of fish to adopt enhanced food safety practices such as those required for China GAP, and No Public Harm voluntary certifications and they would accept a 3.22% discount before being indifferent between having an antibiotic-free facility and using antibiotics. WTC estimates of sustainable eco-friendly practices and verification by various entities were also assessed. A latent class model (LCM) is used to segregate producers into groups with similar underlying characteristics to develop policies to improve producer practices and ultimately product safety and quality.

The increasing share of imported food in developed countries, such as the U.S. and European Union countries, poses new challenges for food safety and quality regulators. China as the world's biggest food producer has the fastest growing share of fish and shellfish exports to these countries. While there have been an increasing number of studies conducted on consumer demand for various food product attributes, little research has been focused on producer behavior, and studies on Chinese food producers are especially absent in the literature. The objective of this study is to assess Chinese aquaculture producers' willingness-to-change (WTC) and adopt certain production practices related to food safety. Producer preferences for enhanced food safety measures, and sustainable/eco-friendly production practices are assessed using a choice experiment. Primary data was collected in the leading aquaculture producing provinces of southern China. The average net income per farmer of our sample was 81,286 RMB/year of which approximately 72% originated from their aquaculture operation. Derived WTC estimates from a random parameters logit model suggest that the representative Chinese producer would require a 2.49% premium per jin of fish to adopt enhanced food safety practices such as those required for China GAP, and No Public Harm voluntary certifications and they would accept a 3.22% discount before being indifferent between having an antibiotic-free facility and using antibiotics. WTC estimates of sustainable eco-friendly practices and verification by various entities were also assessed. A latent class model (LCM) is used to segregate producers into group with similar underlying characteristics to develop policies to improve producer practices and ultimately product safety and quality.

Using spatial econometric techniques, this paper presents an empirical analysis of the growth performances of Chinese prefectures over 1991 to 2007 period. Based on the Solow growth theory with technology spillovers, a Spatial Durbin growth model recently developed is employed to capture the spatial externalities. We find strong evidence of positive spatial dependence between Chinese prefectures after 1991. Apart from the usual divergence conclusions, we find evidence for significant conditional convergence force when the spatial spillover effects are controlled. Our results also indicate the competition effect of capital accumulation and urbanization growth among neighboring regions. Moreover, spatial convergence clubs are detected and the spatial interactions and growth behavior varies.

One would expect that an individual perceives a need for health insurance before making a purchase. However, simply perceiving a need for insurance is not sufficient for making a purchase. When insurance is “lumpy” individuals perceiving a need may not make a purchase if financial resources are lacking. In this paper we develop a theoretical model which differentiates need from demand for health insurance. We then empirically investigate rural health insurance demand in China. We find that factors like children, education and wealth affect perceived need differently from the way they affect demand.