Working Paper No. 245
Published: 2020
Category:
Economics
Toward Valuing Willamette Valley Pinot Noir as a Cultural Good
Neal D. Hulkower & S. Lynne Stokes
Abstract
This paper addresses the question of whether the price of Willamette Valley Pinot noir (WVPn) reflects its value as a cultural good as opposed to just another commodity or agricultural product. First, the characteristics of WVPn are matched to Throsby’s six cultural value characteristics: aesthetic, spiritual, social, historical, symbolic, and authenticity. Then two of Throsby’s assessment methods, expert appraisal and attitudinal analysis, are exercised. For the former, 681 scores assigned by Rusty Gaffney and the retail cost of WVPns are analyzed yielding an upper bound of $4.76 per Gaffney point above 85 for the economic value as a cultural good. The attitudinal analysis is based on a survey modeled after Throsby and Zednik and administered to visitors to four tasting rooms. Each respondent tasted 2 WVPns and completed the survey form for each. Regression models established the association between willingness to pay (WTP) and the various responses, demographic information, and attributes of the wines with aesthetic value (“I find this wine beautiful”) most strongly associated with WTP with an increase of about $9 for tasters who endorse this statement compared to those who don’t.