{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113069"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113069","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Consumer willingness to pay for legal and illegal cannabis product in Illinois","abstract":"The 2020 legalization of adult-use cannabis in Illinois has greatly expanded consumer demand for cannabis product. Consumer decision-making is complicated by the availability of legal and illegal cannabis, both of which are readily available and offer a remarkably similar product. We hypothesized that Illinois cannabis consumers were willing to pay more money for legal cannabis as compared to illegal cannabis product. This hypothesis was confirmed using ordinary least squares regression models informed by surveying Illinois cannabis consumers. We found an average willingness-to-pay price gap between legal and illegal cannabis of approximately 23.42% that is dependent on the strain of cannabis, the consumer’s purchase location, and the consumer’s sensitivity to price and legality as factors in decision making. The results of our OLS models show that consumers are willing to pay $9.68 more for legal cannabis flower product as compared to illegal flower and are willing to pay $10.13 more for legal cannabis edibles as compared to illegal edibles. We posit that although the price gap between legal and illegal cannabis is approximate to the tax rate placed on retail cannabis sales, maintaining sustainability of the legal cannabis industry necessitates cautious policy implementation to ensure continued competitiveness of the legal market while mitigating the viability of the illegal cannabis market.","abstract_html":"The 2020 legalization of adult-use cannabis in Illinois has greatly expanded consumer demand for cannabis product. Consumer decision-making is complicated by the availability of legal and illegal cannabis, both of which are readily available and offer a remarkably similar product. We hypothesized that Illinois cannabis consumers were willing to pay more money for legal cannabis as compared to illegal cannabis product. This hypothesis was confirmed using ordinary least squares regression models informed by surveying Illinois cannabis consumers. We found an average willingness-to-pay price gap between legal and illegal cannabis of approximately 23.42% that is dependent on the strain of cannabis, the consumer’s purchase location, and the consumer’s sensitivity to price and legality as factors in decision making. The results of our OLS models show that consumers are willing to pay $9.68 more for legal cannabis flower product as compared to illegal flower and are willing to pay $10.13 more for legal cannabis edibles as compared to illegal edibles. We posit that although the price gap between legal and illegal cannabis is approximate to the tax rate placed on retail cannabis sales, maintaining sustainability of the legal cannabis industry necessitates cautious policy implementation to ensure continued competitiveness of the legal market while mitigating the viability of the illegal cannabis market.","abstract_has_math":true,"creators":["Tansey, Joel Michael"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.S.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Agricultural & Applied Econ","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Paulson, Nicholas"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-01-12T21:46:54Z","date_published":"2022-01-12T21:46:54Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:53Z","subjects":["Cannabis","Willingness to Pay","Survey data"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2021 Joel Tansey"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113069","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Paulson, Nicholas"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Tansey, Joel Michael"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2022-01-12T21:46:54Z","2021-07-21","2021-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Agricultural & Applied Econ"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.S."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Cannabis","Willingness to Pay","Survey data"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2021 Joel Tansey"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113069"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["The 2020 legalization of adult-use cannabis in Illinois has greatly expanded consumer demand for cannabis product. Consumer decision-making is complicated by the availability of legal and illegal cannabis, both of which are readily available and offer a remarkably similar product. We hypothesized that Illinois cannabis consumers were willing to pay more money for legal cannabis as compared to illegal cannabis product. This hypothesis was confirmed using ordinary least squares regression models informed by surveying Illinois cannabis consumers. We found an average willingness-to-pay price gap between legal and illegal cannabis of approximately 23.42% that is dependent on the strain of cannabis, the consumer’s purchase location, and the consumer’s sensitivity to price and legality as factors in decision making. The results of our OLS models show that consumers are willing to pay $9.68 more for legal cannabis flower product as compared to illegal flower and are willing to pay $10.13 more for legal cannabis edibles as compared to illegal edibles. We posit that although the price gap between legal and illegal cannabis is approximate to the tax rate placed on retail cannabis sales, maintaining sustainability of the legal cannabis industry necessitates cautious policy implementation to ensure continued competitiveness of the legal market while mitigating the viability of the illegal cannabis market.","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-01-12 without embargo terms","The student, Joel Tansey, accepted the attached license on 2021-07-19 at 09:23.","The student, Joel Tansey, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2021-07-19 at 11:56.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2021-07-21 at 11:53.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17004 on 2022-01-12 at 12:46:12","Made available in DSpace on 2022-01-12T21:46:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 TANSEY-THESIS-2021.pdf: 3361960 bytes, checksum: fe5f850be0b836cb307343d6156bfaa2 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4208 bytes, checksum: 3bb33857afd0fe96d30a5015928fe95c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2021-07-21"]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Consumer willingness to pay for legal and illegal cannabis product in Illinois"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Paulson, Nicholas"],"dc:creator":["Tansey, Joel Michael"],"dc:date":["2022-01-12T21:46:54Z","2021-07-21","2021-08"],"dc:description":["The 2020 legalization of adult-use cannabis in Illinois has greatly expanded consumer demand for cannabis product. Consumer decision-making is complicated by the availability of legal and illegal cannabis, both of which are readily available and offer a remarkably similar product. We hypothesized that Illinois cannabis consumers were willing to pay more money for legal cannabis as compared to illegal cannabis product. This hypothesis was confirmed using ordinary least squares regression models informed by surveying Illinois cannabis consumers. We found an average willingness-to-pay price gap between legal and illegal cannabis of approximately 23.42% that is dependent on the strain of cannabis, the consumer’s purchase location, and the consumer’s sensitivity to price and legality as factors in decision making. The results of our OLS models show that consumers are willing to pay $9.68 more for legal cannabis flower product as compared to illegal flower and are willing to pay $10.13 more for legal cannabis edibles as compared to illegal edibles. We posit that although the price gap between legal and illegal cannabis is approximate to the tax rate placed on retail cannabis sales, maintaining sustainability of the legal cannabis industry necessitates cautious policy implementation to ensure continued competitiveness of the legal market while mitigating the viability of the illegal cannabis market.","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-01-12 without embargo terms","The student, Joel Tansey, accepted the attached license on 2021-07-19 at 09:23.","The student, Joel Tansey, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2021-07-19 at 11:56.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2021-07-21 at 11:53.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17004 on 2022-01-12 at 12:46:12","Made available in DSpace on 2022-01-12T21:46:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 TANSEY-THESIS-2021.pdf: 3361960 bytes, checksum: fe5f850be0b836cb307343d6156bfaa2 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4208 bytes, checksum: 3bb33857afd0fe96d30a5015928fe95c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2021-07-21"],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113069"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2021 Joel Tansey"],"dc:subject":["Cannabis","Willingness to Pay","Survey data"],"dc:title":["Consumer willingness to pay for legal and illegal cannabis product in Illinois"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Agricultural & Applied Econ"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.S."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:53Z"}