IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/genres/18212.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Value Of Verificable Information In A Controversial Market: Evidence From Lab Auctions Of Genetically Modified Food

Author

Listed:
  • Rousu, Matthew C.
  • Huffman, Wallace E.
  • Shogren, Jason F.
  • Tegene, Abebayehu

Abstract

Two interested parties dominate the current debate on genetically modified (GM) foods: environmental groups and agribusiness companies. For the average consumer to arrive at an informed decision on these new foods, they must rely on information from interested parties. Unfortunately, information from interested parties does not provide an accurate picture of the benefits and risks of new products. This paper examines the effects of information on consumers' demand for new food products, GM-foods, in an environment where information from one or more interested parties is provided. We design and conduct laboratory auction experiments using randomly chosen adult consumers from two large metropolitan areas who are grouped into twelve experimental units and subjected to six randomly assigned information treatments. We find that in this environment, verifiable information has a small but positive value to sample consumers, and the projected annual social value to all processed foods consumed is relatively large for this public good. Such a large potential value may make it worthwhile for the United States to establish a new third party institution that would produce and distribute verifiable information on GM food.

Suggested Citation

  • Rousu, Matthew C. & Huffman, Wallace E. & Shogren, Jason F. & Tegene, Abebayehu, 2002. "The Value Of Verificable Information In A Controversial Market: Evidence From Lab Auctions Of Genetically Modified Food," Working Papers 18212, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:genres:18212
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.18212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/18212/files/wp020003.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.18212?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jason F. Shogren & John A. List & Dermot J. Hayes, 2000. "Preference Learning in Consecutive Experimental Auctions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 82(4), pages 1016-1021.
    2. Shogren, Jason F. & Seung Y. Shin & Dermot J. Hayes & James B. Kliebenstein, 1994. "Resolving Differences in Willingness to Pay and Willingness to Accept," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 255-270, March.
    3. Jason F. Shogren & John A. Fox, 1996. "Consumer Preferences for Fresh Food Items with Multiple Quality Attributes: Evidence from an Experimental Auction of Pork Chops," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 78(4), pages 916-923.
    4. Huffman, Wallace E. & Shogren, Jason F. & Rousu, Matthew & Tegene, Abe, 2001. "The Value of Consumers of Genetically Modified Food Labels in a Market with Diverse Information: Evidence from Experimental Auctions," ISU General Staff Papers 200112010800001346, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    5. Jack Knetsch & Fang-Fang Tang & Richard Thaler, 2001. "The Endowment Effect and Repeated Market Trials: Is the Vickrey Auction Demand Revealing?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 4(3), pages 257-269, December.
    6. Huffman, Wallace E. & Shogren, Jason F. & Rousu, Matthew C. & Tegene, Abebayehu, 2001. "The Value To Consumers Of Gm Food Labels In A Market With Asymmetric Information: Evidence From Experimental Auctions," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20553, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Huffman, Wallace & Rousu, M. & Shogren, Jason F. & Tegene, Abebayehu, 1009. "Are U.S. Consumers Tolerant of GM Foods?," Staff General Research Papers Archive 12336, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Huffman, Wallace & Rousu, Matthew & Shogren, Jason F. & Tegene, Abebayehu, 2002. "Should the United States Regulate Mandatory Labeling for Genetically Modified Foods?," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10047, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    3. Tegene, Abebayehu & Huffman, Wallace E. & Rousu, Matthew C. & Shogren, Jason F., 2003. "The Effects Of Information On Consumer Demand For Biotech Foods: Evidence From Experimental Auctions," Technical Bulletins 33577, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    4. Chern, Wen S. & Kaneko, Naoya & Tarakcioglu, Gulay Babadogan, 2003. "Willingness to Pay for PEF-processed Orange Juice: Evidence from an Auction Experiment," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 21897, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    5. Shogren, Jason F. & Margolis, Michael & Koo, Cannon & List, John A., 2001. "A random nth-price auction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 409-421, December.
    6. Andreas C. Drichoutis & Panagiotis Lazaridis & Rodolfo M. Nayga, 2009. "Would consumers value food-away-from-home products with nutritional labels?," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 550-575.
    7. Dickinson, David L. & Bailey, DeeVon, 2002. "Meat Traceability: Are U.S. Consumers Willing To Pay For It?," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 27(2), pages 1-17, December.
    8. Alfnes, Frode & Rickertsen, Kyrre & Ueland, Oydis, 2005. "Experimental Evidence of Risk Aversion in Consumer Markets: The Case of Beef Tenderness," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19285, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. Ty Feldkamp & Ted C. Schroeder, 2004. "Experimental Auction Procedure: Impact on Valuation of Quality Differentiated Goods," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(2), pages 389-405.
    10. Huffman, Wallace E. & Shogren, Jason F. & Rousu, Matthew C. & Tegene, Abebayehu, 2003. "Consumer Willingness to Pay for Genetically Modified Food Labels in a Market with Diverse Information: Evidence from Experimental Auctions," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 28(3), pages 1-22, December.
    11. repec:ken:wpaper:0602 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Lusk, Jayson L. & Daniel, M. Scott & Mark, Darrell R. & Lusk, Christine L., 2001. "Alternative Calibration And Auction Institutions For Predicting Consumer Willingess To Pay For Nongenetically Modified Corn Chips," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 26(1), pages 1-18, July.
    13. John List & Jason Shogren, 1998. "The Deadweight Loss from Christmas: Comment," Artefactual Field Experiments 00531, The Field Experiments Website.
    14. Matthew Rousu & Wallace E. Huffman & Jason F. Shogren & Abebayehu Tegene, 2007. "Effects And Value Of Verifiable Information In A Controversial Market: Evidence From Lab Auctions Of Genetically Modified Food," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(3), pages 409-432, July.
    15. D Rigby & M Burton, 2003. "Capturing Preference Heterogeneity in Stated Choice Models: A Random Parameter Logit Model of the Demand for GM Food," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0319, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    16. Wallace E. Huffman & Matthew Rousu & Jason F. Shogren & Abebayehu Tegene, 2004. "Who Do Consumers Trust for Information: The Case of Genetically Modified Foods?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1222-1229.
    17. William A. Masters & Diakalia Sanogo, 2002. "Welfare Gains from Quality Certification of Infant Foods: Results from a Market Experiment in Mali," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 84(4), pages 974-989.
    18. Xue, Hong & Mainville, Denise Y. & You, Wen & Nayga, Rodolfo M., Jr., 2009. "Nutrition Knowledge, Sensory Characteristics and Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Pasture-Fed Beef," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49277, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Dragicevic, Arnaud Z. & Ettinger, David, 2011. "Private Valuation of a Public Good in Three Auction Mechanisms," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 1-29, April.
    20. Espérance Zossou & Rose Fiamohe & Simple Davo Vodouhe & Matty Demont, 2022. "Experimental auctions with exogenous and endogenous information treatment: Willingness to pay for improved parboiled rice in Benin," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(3), pages 806-825, September.
    21. Oben K Bayrak & Bengt Kriström, 2016. "Is there a valuation gap? The case of interval valuations," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(1), pages 218-236.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies;

    JEL classification:

    • Q10 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:genres:18212. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deiasus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.