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近年来,随着社会的不断发展和消费市场的日新月异，消费者为了满足自己的消费需求越来越关注他们想要购买产品的质量、安全性、适用性和可能对环境产生的影响。然而,在许多情况下,消费者即使已经消费了这种产品，仍然不知道商品或产品的质量如何。这些产品被称为信用品。同样的产品，即使消费过后，也很难区分两种产品的品质孰好孰坏。在这种情况下,消费者更愿意为那些不易觉察到的隐藏的产品属性买单。这些商品包括“天然”与转基因(GM)食品、有机和非有机产品,“公平贸易”产品,“适合素食者”产品,“符合犹太教教规的产品”,更普遍的高质量的与低质量的产品。然而,本文最感兴趣的是研究一种特殊的信用产品,这是“清真”与非清真产品或商品。

清真是阿拉伯语，意味着合法的或允许的。它遵循伊斯兰统治，称为回教法。穆斯林清真涵盖生活的方方面面，尤其是饮食方面。清真食品仅仅意味着穆斯林食品中不包含任何伊斯兰教所禁止的食品元素。

Chapter 1

In recent years, consumers are becoming increasingly conscious about the quality, safety, suitability and environmental impacts of the goods that they demand. However, in many cases, consumers would not aware of the quality of a goods or products even after consumptions. These products are known as the credence goods. It is difficult to distinguish between two qualities of the same good, even after consumption. In such case, consumers are willing to pay a premium for the hidden attributes of the goods that they cannot observe. Such goods include ‘natural' versus genetically modified (GM) food, ‘organic' versus non-organic products, ‘fair-trade' products, ‘suitable for vegetarians' goods, ‘Kosher', and more generally ‘high-quality' versus low-quality products. However, this paper is interested to study a special type of credence goods, that is ‘Halal' versus non-Halal products or goods.

Halal is an Arabic word which means lawful or permissible. It follows the Islamic ruling known as the Syariah law. Halal covers every aspect of Muslims' life especially dietary. Halal food simply means that the food products are free from any elements which Muslims prohibited from consuming.

Extended discussion on Halal is presented in Chapter 2. With Islam as the second largest religion in the world and the fastest growing, the world Halal food trade is estimated to be around US$ 150 billion to US$ 500 billion in 2007 on which US$ 80 billion alone is generated from agri-food products (Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, 2007; Brunei Halal, 2007). These factors hasten the investment in Halal products, and in some cases, producers cheat for easy access to the market. Analysis of Halal in this paper, distinguishes itself from other studies on credence goods, as it involves different levels of consumers interactions.

Any credence goods, including Halal products, comprise a special attribute or characteristic. This characteristic is not verifiable and revealed unless by experts or other professional services. Hahn (2004) suggested that real or complete credence goods would be difficult to find as consumers would have some judgement on products or services after the consumption. This is not entirely true as in case of Halal food product, especially Halal meat. It is very difficult to check if the meat is entirely Halal as claimed, as there is no existing way to check after consumption whether say the meat purchased is really slaughtered inSyariah methods, even though there is non-existence of other non-Halal ingredients. Therefore, in this sense, Halal meat is an example of a real credence good.

In many cases, consumers' concern for the special or credence attribute 本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。