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Understanding how experts rate cigars: A “havanometric” analysis

Author

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  • Nicolas Gérard Vaillant

    (LEM - Lille - Economie et Management - Université de Lille, Sciences et Technologies - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • François-Charles Wolff

    (INED - Institut national d'études démographiques, LEMNA - Laboratoire d'économie et de management de Nantes Atlantique - IEMN-IAE Nantes - Institut d'Économie et de Management de Nantes - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises - Nantes - UN - Université de Nantes)

Abstract

Drawing on data from an annual French guidebook published in 2004, this paper focuses on the determinants of experts' ratings on Cuban cigars. We find that high quality cigars are more likely to be recommended to more experienced cigar lovers. Both the self-assessed quality and recommendation depend on the length and diameter of the cigars, but also on more subjective characteristics like number and type of aromas. Results from a Fields' decomposition show that the quality of cigars is much more sensitive to the presence of a defect and number of aromas than the experts' recommendation, which is more influenced by the rarity of cigars. Finally, it is essentially the cigars' objective characteristics that have an influence on their prices, meaning that consumers truly benefit from additional qualitative information when reading experts' advice and ratings.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolas Gérard Vaillant & François-Charles Wolff, 2010. "Understanding how experts rate cigars: A “havanometric” analysis," Working Papers hal-00547705, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00547705
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00547705
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Nicolas Gérard Vaillant & François-charles Wolff, 2012. "Do consumers learn from tasting scores set by experts?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(2), pages 1378-1384.

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    Keywords

    Cigars; expert opinion; quality;
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