Consumer willingness to pay for food safety interventions: The role of message framing and issue involvement

The study examines the impact of gain and loss message framing and issue involvement elicitation on consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for two food safety enhancing technologies; cattle vaccines against E. coli and direct-fed microbials. A random sample of 1,842 US consumers completed a survey instrument that included six information treatments and a choice experiment. Empirical results show strong consumer preference and WTP for the technologies and consumer welfare gains from their introduction. Consistent with loss aversion, the loss framed message induced the highest WTP, while elicitation of issue involvement reinforced (weakened) the influence of the loss (gain)-framed message.