Is Marine Stewardship Council's ecolabel a rising tide for all? Consumers' willingness to pay for origin-differentiated ecolabeled canned tuna

The Marine Stewardship Council's (MSC) sustainable seafood ecolabel covers about 10% of total seafood catch globally. Despite its prevalence, consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for MSC-certified imported seafood is not well understood. Using a choice experiment conducted with an American-consumers sample, this study measures the differences in WTP for American, Ecuadorian, and Vietnamese canned tuna. The results noted two things. First, the ecolabel induces country-specific effects, where the marginal WTP for the MSC label is higher for the imported products than for the domestic product; second, consumers prefer domestic products ceteris paribus, nevertheless, the premium of the ecolabel-when attached to the imported products-may partially eclipse preference for domestic products without the ecolabel. The results imply that the MSC ecolabel may generate a more favorable effect when applied to products from developing countries.