Willingness to pay for P.D.O. certification: an empirical investigation

The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumer preferences and estimate their willingness to pay (WTP) for P.D.O. (Protected Designation of Origin) certification. The original contribution of this analysis is the evidence provided on regional differences among consumers in their evaluations. We interpret this result as the higher level of information available to consumers that live in the production region of the food product in question, thus giving less value to P.D.O. certification. The product that this study focuses on is Italian P.D.O. Fontina cheese. In order to conduct the study, we collected original data that we analyze through the conjoint analysis technique.