Consumers’ Preferences for Health Related and Environmental Friendly Food Attributes of Italian Pasta

This paper explores Italian consumers’ appreciation for health-related and environmentally friendly attributes of whole-wheat pasta. A modified version of the attribute-based referenda (ABR) model has been estimated on a sequence of two dichotomous choice questions randomly administered to a sample of households, starting as a single-attribute version (“adding” treatment) or a complete product version (“subtracting” treatment). The results suggest that taste and habits are considerable barriers, since only whole-wheat pasta consumers are willing to pay for health-related attributes. Overall, people are unwilling to pay for the environmental attribute even when informed of a product’s environmentally friendly method of production. However, the way in which the choice is framed is important, with higher values attached to attributes evaluated in the subtracting context, supporting prospect theory and the endowment effect.