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Price determinants in top‐quality e‐auctioned specialty coffees
Author(s) -
Donnet M. Laura,
Weatherspoon Dave D.,
Hoehn John P.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.29
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1574-0862
pISSN - 0169-5150
DOI - 10.1111/j.1574-0862.2008.00298.x
Subject(s) - common value auction , reputation , quality (philosophy) , ranking (information retrieval) , economics , product (mathematics) , microeconomics , commodity , econometrics , business , marketing , computer science , mathematics , social science , philosophy , geometry , epistemology , machine learning , sociology , market economy
Abstract We analyze the price determinants of specialty coffees traded at e‐auctions. We hypothesize that since specialty coffees are a highly differentiated product, prices will be determined by both sensory and reputation attributes. To test our hypotheses, we estimate a hedonic price function using data from Central and South American e‐auctions and calculate the implicit prices of sensory and reputation attributes. The results show that market clearing prices are a function of sensory characteristics and reputation variables including third‐party quality ranking, country of origin, coffee variety, and quantity. The additional attribute information disclosed at e‐auctions results in substantially higher prices relative to conventional commodity coffee market prices.