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Abstract
More and more coffee-producing
countries establish geographical indications (GIs) for
their coffees. GIs are not only considered to be a useful
tool for protecting an established reputation against
misuse by imitators but also being a useful strategic tool
to enter the growing specialty coffee market. Whereas
the importance of regional reputation is quite well-documented
in the empirical literature on wine, empirical
evidence for regional reputational effects on coffee
prices is rather scarce. Hence, the objective of the present
paper is to shed light on the relevance of regional
reputation in the coffee market by representing results
for Honduran coffees. A hedonic pricing model based on
internet auction data is presented including current
quality proxied by a quality score and reputation via
regional dummies. The results indicate that up to now
the region Marcala, for which a Denomination of Origin
was established in 2005, has not yet established such a
reputation that after controlling for quality differences
higher auction prices are paid for coffees coming from
this region.