Welfare Effects of Food Labels and Bans with Alternative Willingness to Pay Measures

This paper integrates several areas of the literature by more fully developing the linkage between demand estimates and the welfare effects of food labels and bans for three common survey/experimental approaches used to elicit consumer preferences. We present empirical applications related to beef cloning and methylmercury in fish where, for the same data sets, we compare each value elicitation approach in terms of the consumer surplus changes that result from two regulations. Welfare measures vary significantly across the three methodologies, but the sign of the welfare change is invariant across method. Copyright 2010, Oxford University Press.