A calibrated model is used to determine the welfare impacts of various regulatory instruments for improving health. The results of a lab experiment are integrated in a partial equilibrium model representing demands for two kinds of fish, one with higher nutritional benefits (canned sardines) and one with higher contamination risks (canned tuna) in France. In the laboratory, information about health effects leads to a statistically significant decrease (increase) in the willingness to pay for tuna (sardines). Simulations with the laboratory results show that, for most cases, a per-unit tax on tuna and a per-unit subsidy on sardines without any information revealed to consumers lead to the highest welfare, because both the tax and subsidy directly internalize health characteristics. The information policy combined with a per-unit tax on tuna and a per-unit subsidy on sardines is socially profitable only if a large proportion of consumers (greater than 95%) receives health information.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: