Importance of Social Influence in Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Local Food: Are There Gender Differences?

Abstract

The authors assess consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for a local food product using an experimental auction. As local foods involve a social component, they aim also to test if social influence affects WTP for local foods and if the effects of social influence on WTP are different between men and women. They found that consumers are willing to pay a premium for the analyzed local food product. Moreover, social influence indeed affects WTP values, but the effects are different between men and women. Although social influence positively affects WTP for local foods for women, the effect is negative for men. The results have significant marketing and policy implications related to the promotion of local foods.