Collective reputation and food

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of the economic literature on food and collective reputation. Often both the quality of food and the producer of the food are not known at the time of purchase; therefore, consumers sometimes rely on a collective reputation for the expected quality. This collective reputation could be for a region, commodity, country, franchise, or cooperative. This paper summarizes the theoretical literature that illustrates incentives for firms and regions, as well as the empirical literature that analyzes collective reputation for various types of food. Recommendations for future work and policy implications are given.

Food safety, reputation, and regulation

“…Winfree and McCluskey (2005) model collective reputation as a dynamic common property resource problem and show that implementing minimum quality standards can be Pareto improving because firms acting individually would provide products with quality lower than optimal for the group. See Winfree (2023) for additional examples and discussion. 25 EDMs use estimated parameters including supply and demand elasticities to simulate market outcomes following some shifts in supply or demand.…”

“…This article complements the others by focusing on empirical analysis of food-safety regulations and reputation, mainly in the context of the United States. It should also complement Winfree (2023), which reviews both theoretical and empirical literature on collective reputation and food, including several examples related to food safety.…”