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Are Mercury Advisories Effective? Information, Education, and Fish Consumption

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Author Info
Timothy K.M. Beatty
Jay P. Shimshack
Michael B. Ward

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Abstract

This paper examines responses to a national FDA advisory urging at-risk individuals to limit store-bought fish consumption due to the dangers of methyl-mercury. We address this issue using parametric and nonparametric methods, including recently developed tests of stochastic dominance. Both education and newspaper readership were important determinants of consumption response, suggesting that information acquisition and assimilation are key factors for risk avoidance. While the advisory was effective for some groups, we do not find a response among the relatively large group of at-risk households which met neither the education nor readership criteria.

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Paper provided by Department of Economics, Tufts University in its series Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University with number 0502.

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Date of creation: 2005
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Handle: RePEc:tuf:tuftec:0502

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

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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.:
  1. Teisl, Mario F. & Roe, Brian & Hicks, Robert L., 2002. "Can Eco-Labels Tune a Market? Evidence from Dolphin-Safe Labeling," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 339-359, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 120-137 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  3. Deaton, Angus & Irish, Margaret, 1984. "Statistical models for zero expenditures in household budgets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 59-80. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Fenn, Aju J. & Antonovitz, Frances & Schroeter, John R., 2001. "Cigarettes and addiction information: new evidence in support of the rational addiction model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 39-45, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Sloan, Frank A. & Smith, V. Kerry & Taylor, Donald Jr., 2002. "Information, addiction, and 'bad choices': lessons from a century of cigarettes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 147-155, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Krupnick, Alan & McGuinness, Meghan & Jakus, Paul, 2002. "The Benefits and Costs of Fish Consumption Advisories for Mercury," Discussion Papers dp-02-55, Resources For the Future. [Downloadable!]
  7. W. Kip Viscusi & Wesley A. Magat & Joel Huber, 1986. "Informational Regulation of Consumer Health Risks: An Empirical Evaluation of Hazard Warnings," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(3), pages 351-365, Autumn. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Fry, Vanessa & Pashardes, Panos, 1994. "Abstention and Aggregation in Consumer Demand: Zero Tobacco Expenditures," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 502-18, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. W. Kip Viscusi & Wesley A. Magat & Joel Huber, 1999. "Smoking Status and Public Responses to Ambiguous Scientific Risk Evidence," Southern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 250-270, October.
  10. Daniel L. Millimet & John A. List, 2003. "A Natural Experiment on the 'Race to the Bottom' Hypothesis: Testing for Stochastic Dominance in Temporal Pollution Trends," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(4), pages 395-420, 09. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Esfandiar Maasoumi & Almas Heshmati, 2000. "Stochastic dominance amongst swedish income distributions," Econometric Reviews, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 287-320. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Pollak, Robert A & Wales, Terence J, 1981. "Demographic Variables in Demand Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1533-51, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Foster, William & Just, Richard E., 1989. "Measuring welfare effects of product contamination with consumer uncertainty," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 266-283, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Mathios, Alan D, 2000. "The Impact of Mandatory Disclosure Laws on Product Choices: An Analysis of the Salad Dressing Market," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(2), pages 651-77, October.
  15. Anderson, Gordon, 1996. "Nonparametric Tests of Stochastic Dominance in Income Distributions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1183-93, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Blundell, Richard & Meghir, Costas, 1987. "Bivariate alternatives to the Tobit model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1-2), pages 179-200. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, 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.)

  1. Gilbert E. Metcalf & Jongsang Park, 2005. "A Comment on the Role of Prices for Excludable Public Goods," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0524, Department of Economics, Tufts University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Darlene C. Chisholm & Margaret S. McMillan & George Norman, 2005. "Product Differentiation and Film Programming Choice: Do First-Run Movie Theatres Show the Same Films?," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0523, Department of Economics, Tufts University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Yannis M. Ioannides & Adriaan R. Soetevent, 2005. "Social Networking and Individual Outcomes Beyond the Mean Field Case," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0521, Department of Economics, Tufts University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Willson, Tina & Kazmierczak, Richard F., Jr., 2007. "The Public Health and Economic Impacts of Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic (PBT) Contaminants on U.S. Fisheries," 2007 Annual Meeting, February 4-7, 2007, Mobile, Alabama 34963, Southern Agricultural Economics Association. [Downloadable!]
  5. Antoni Calvo-Armengol & Yannis M. Ioannides, 2005. "Social Networks in Labor Markets," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0517, Department of Economics, Tufts University. [Downloadable!]
  6. Darlene Chisholm & George Norman, 2005. "When to Exit a Product: Evidence from the U.S. Motion-Pictures Exhibition Market," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0522, Department of Economics, Tufts University. [Downloadable!]
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