Voluntary eco-labeling and the price premium.

摘要

International environmental organizations propose voluntary eco-labelling as a market incentive to promote industry to operate in an ecologically sustainable and environmentally friendly manner. A microeconomic analysis questions whether voluntary eco-labelling will cause producer profits in a competitive industry to decline and whether eco-labelling will necessarily generate different prices for labelled and unlabelled product. Using a wood product as an example, results identify conditions that may exist when firms lose profits, even under a voluntary system, and where existing production constraints may lead to a single price, regardless of labelling.