Do denominations of origin provide useful quality signals? The case of Bordeaux wines

This paper investigates whether the existing Denominations of Origin (DOs) provide useful quality signals for wine consumers. To test our conjecture that the large number of existing DOs is too many for the typical consumer, we investigate the patterns of co-movement among average monthly wholesale...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Alston, J.M (Author), Cardebat, J.-M (Author), Livat, F. (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier B.V. 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
LEADER 01628nam a2200229Ia 4500
001 10.1016-j.econmod.2018.06.003
008 220511s2019 CNT 000 0 und d
020 |a 02649993 (ISSN) 
245 1 0 |a Do denominations of origin provide useful quality signals? The case of Bordeaux wines 
260 0 |b Elsevier B.V.  |c 2019 
856 |z View Fulltext in Publisher  |u https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2018.06.003 
520 3 |a This paper investigates whether the existing Denominations of Origin (DOs) provide useful quality signals for wine consumers. To test our conjecture that the large number of existing DOs is too many for the typical consumer, we investigate the patterns of co-movement among average monthly wholesale prices for red wines from the 11 main DOs in Bordeaux over 16 years, 1999–2014. Our results indicate that consumers substitute among these wines according to the similarity of semantic elements in the names of DOs on the labels, and not according to prices or terroir that could reflect intrinsic quality where the names as such cannot. This finding suggests that the current DOs are too numerous and complex to provide helpful quality signals to consumers. A substantial reduction of the number of DOs might be warranted to better address the broader informational issue in wine markets. © 2018 Elsevier B.V. 
650 0 4 |a Cointegration 
650 0 4 |a Denomination of origin 
650 0 4 |a Price 
650 0 4 |a Quality signal 
650 0 4 |a Substitution 
650 0 4 |a Wine 
700 1 |a Alston, J.M.  |e author 
700 1 |a Cardebat, J.-M.  |e author 
700 1 |a Livat, F.  |e author 
773 |t Economic Modelling