Is There a Price Premium on Typical Made-in-Italy Products? The Case of On-Line Wine Markets

This paper investigates if a made-in-Italy effect, in terms of a price premium on typical made-in-Italy products, is present on foreign markets and tries to assess its magnitude. We focus empirically on the e-commerce of made-in-Italy wine. Data on more than 17 thousand bottles are collected through a web scraping technique from three relevant online wine sellers from United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. The comparison between the average price of Italian wine and that produced in other countries is carried out using a technique inspired by the propensity score matching approach used in the evaluation of public policies. With no claim to causality, we find that made-in-Italy wines suffer from a price loss compared to wines that are very similar in a set of relevant characteristics (e.g., type of grapes, quality, popularity), except for the fact that they are not Italian. Such loss is mainly attributable to the performance of low-priced wines and to the us market. Results call for further research on the management of private and collective brands, and, more in general, on policies supporting typical made-in-Italy sectors in the world market.