Consumer economics and industrial strategies: theoretical contributions and applications to the agri-food sector.

Summary This thesis is a contribution to the analysis of the consumption and distribution of food goods. It is based on the theoretical framework of demand econometrics and vertical relationships in industrial organization. The first part is based on the example of wine consumption. The aim is to understand statistically the extreme diversity of values available for price and income elasticities. Using a meta-analysis, we show how the results obtained vary according to the socio-economic characteristics of the population studied, the type of database, and the modeling technologies used by the authors. After finding that wine characteristics influence the estimation of income elasticities, we propose an experimental economics protocol to measure consumers' willingness to pay for private labels and appellations of origin. The second part of the thesis focuses on the improvement of the willingness to pay by retailers. We first show how it is possible to consider selective distribution of products by distributors that are efficient in their marketing efforts. Based on a study of private labels of fresh products, the last chapter of the thesis studies the possibility for retailers to improve the quality of products, and the effects of such a strategy on the economy of an agri-food chain.