LAUSR

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.