Why do people in the U.S. pay more for bouillabaisse than kaeng som? Experimental tests of how cuisine and authenticity affect the value of food

Abstract

The average prices of foods vary across cuisines but do these differences reflect the value people assign to different cuisines or how much they are willing to pay? Across four preregistered randomized experiments (total N = 1083), we manipulated the cuisine-of-origin (French, Thai) and authenticity (low, high) descriptions for analogous dishes across cuisines (e.g., two seafood soups: French bouillabaisse and Thai kaeng som) and restaurant review pages in Studies 2–4. Participants estimated the price in U.S. dollars (Studies 1–3) or indicated the price they would be willing to pay (Study 4). Although we did not find evidence of an authenticity effect, we observed large effects of cuisine-labeling, as dishes were estimated to be $4.47 more expensive (Studies 1–3) and participants reported being willing to pay an average of $3.83 more (Study 4) when the dish was labeled as French, rather than Thai. These findings suggest that the value assigned to different cuisines and the price that consumers are willing to pay are not based solely on objective attributes of the food, but instead may reflect and reinforce existing systemic disparities in the ways that cuisines are perceived and portrayed.