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Is There a Price Premium for Local Food? The Case of the Fresh Lettuce Market in Hawaii

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Xun Xu ,
Matthew K. Loke  and
PingSun Leung
Xun Xu
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and a research assistant in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management at University of Hawai'i at Manoa
Matthew K. Loke
Affiliation:
Agricultural Development Division of the Hawaii Department of Agriculture and visiting researcher at the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management at University of Hawai'i at Manoa
PingSun Leung*
Affiliation:
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management at University of Hawai'i at Manoa
*
Correspondence: 3050 Maile Way, Gilmore Hall 111 ▪ Honolulu, HI 96822 ▪ Phone 808.956.8562 ▪ Email psleung@hawaii.edu.
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Abstract

“Buying local״ has become one of the most important trends in food marketing. Despite widespread public attention, the influence of the “local״ attribute on food prices is not well understood. We aim to begin to fill this gap in research by exploring the presence of a price premium for “local״ in actual market transactions. Using scanner data on fresh packaged lettuce in the Honolulu market and hedonic modeling, we investigate consumers’ revealed preferences for the attribute. Contrary to the positive willingness to pay for local food widely reported in previous studies, we find no local premium for fresh lettuce in the Honolulu market.

Keywords

elasticity of substitutionhedonic price modellettucelocal foodprice premiumscanner data
Type
Research Article
Information
Agricultural and Resource Economics Review , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , April 2015 , pp. 110 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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