Consumers implicitly incorporate their perceptions of products into their decision processes, yet little research has explicitly focused on how those perceptions influence demand for meat. This study incorporates taste, health, and safety perceptions into a discrete choice experiment for meat products at a grocery store. Our results indicate that taste is the most important perception as a 1-unit increase in the perceived tastiness (on a −5 to +5 scale) of a food product leads to a $0.60 increase in willingness to pay, whereas equivalent increases in perceived health and safety lead to $0.31 and $0.21 increases, respectively.

This note introduces a simple, easy-to-understand measure of inattention bias in discrete choice models. The metric, ranging from 0 to 1, can be compared across studies and samples. Specifically, a latent class logit model is estimated with all parameters in one class restricted to zero. The estimated share of observations falling in the class with null parameters (representing random choices) is the diagnostic measure of interest – the random response share. We validate the metric with an empirical study that identifies inattentive respondents via a trap question.

Purpose: While previous studies have looked at the negative consequences of beer drinking often as a prelude to discussing benefits of laws that curtail consumption, the purpose of this paper is to understand the downside of such regulations insofar as reducing entrepreneurial activity in the brewing industry.Design/methodology/approach: Using a unique data set from the Brewers’ Association that contains information on the number and type of brewery in each county, this study explores the relationship between the number of breweries and regulations targeted at the brewing industry. Zero-inflated negative binomial regressions are used to determine the relationship between the number of microbreweries and brewpubs per county and state beer taxes, self-distribution legislation, and on-premises sales.Findings: The authors find that allowing breweries to sell beers on-premises as well as allowing for breweries to self-distribute have statistically significant relationships with the number of microbreweries, brewpubs, and breweries. The authors do not find an economically significant relationship between state excise taxes and the number of breweries of any type.Originality/value: Results suggest that whatever public health benefits are brought about by alcohol laws, they are not a free lunch, as they may hinder entrepreneurial development.