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.