Willingness-to-pay for food safety: an experimental investigation of quality certification on bidding behaviour

We study the impact of new information about food safety on subjects' willingness-to-pay for food products, in an experimental setting. We elicit prices using either a second price auction or the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak procedure. There are three stages of bidding. In stage 1, subjects bid for products without any information. In stage 2, public information about health impact is provided. In stage 3, new certified products become available, and subjects bid then for non-certified and certified products. The introduction of certified products induces an asymmetric updating of initial bids, bids for non-certified products are lowered, but bids for certified products remain equal to the initial bids.