IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fpr/ifprid/169025.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Market information and R&D investment under ambiguity: A framed artefactual experiment with plant breeding professionals

Author

Listed:
  • Trachtman, Carly
  • Kramer, Berber
  • do Nascimento Miguel, Jérémy

Abstract

Investments in R&D are often made under ambiguity about the potential impacts of various projects. High-quality, systematic market research could help reduce that ambiguity, including in investments in agricultural research-for-development, such as plant breeding. Using an online framed artefactual experiment with a diverse sample of breeding experts working in various disciplines across the world, we ask how market information and information quality influences breeding experts’ investments in prospects with ambiguous returns, and how the quality and source of information affect willingness to pay for market information. We find that providing market information leads participants to make more prioritized (rather than diversified) decisions. However, participants do not consider differences in information quality, instead over extrapolating from noisy and biased information signals. Finally, while most participants are willing to use experimental funds to purchase market information, around half prefer lower quality information even if higher quality information is available at the same price. We conclude that prioritizing R&D projects with greater impact opportunities will require better awareness among decision-makers of quality issues in various types of market research.

Suggested Citation

  • Trachtman, Carly & Kramer, Berber & do Nascimento Miguel, Jérémy, 2024. "Market information and R&D investment under ambiguity: A framed artefactual experiment with plant breeding professionals," IFPRI discussion papers 2314, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:fpr:ifprid:169025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/169025
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglas Gollin & Casper Worm Hansen & Asger Mose Wingender, 2021. "Two Blades of Grass: The Impact of the Green Revolution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(8), pages 2344-2384.
    2. Stéphane Couture & Stéphane Lemarié & Sabrina Teyssier & Pascal Toquebeuf, 2024. "The value of information under ambiguity: a theoretical and experimental study on pest management in agriculture," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 96(1), pages 19-47, February.
    3. Divya Aggarwal & Pitabas Mohanty, 2022. "Influence of imprecise information on risk and ambiguity preferences: Experimental evidence," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(4), pages 1025-1038, June.
    4. Alexander Peysakhovich & Uma R. Karmarkar, 2016. "Asymmetric Effects of Favorable and Unfavorable Information on Decision Making Under Ambiguity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(8), pages 2163-2178, August.
    5. Roxane Bricet, 2018. "Preferences for information precision under ambiguity," THEMA Working Papers 2018-09, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    6. Julian M. Alston & Philip G. Pardey & Xudong Rao, 2022. "Payoffs to a half century of CGIAR research," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 104(2), pages 502-529, March.
    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. Minnich, Aljoscha & Roggenkamp, Hauke & Lange, Andreas, 2024. "Ambiguity attitudes and surprises: Experimental evidence on communicating new information within a large population sample," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    2. Aljoscha Minnich & Hauke Roggenkamp & Andreas Lange, 2023. "Ambiguity Attitudes and Surprises: Experimental Evidence on Communicating New Information within a Large Population Sample," CESifo Working Paper Series 10783, CESifo.
    3. Kramer, Berber & Spielman, David J., 2025. "Quality seeds, improved varieties: The economics of crop genetic improvement and farmer uptake," IFPRI book chapters, in: Global food policy report 2025: Food policy: Lessons and priorities for a changing world, chapter 9, pages 221-244, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    4. Marielle Brunette & Stéphane Couture & Patrice Loisel, 2025. "Decisions under ambiguities and value of information: An experiment on forest management in the context of climate change," Working Papers of BETA 2025-41, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    5. Shanchao Wang & Julian M. Alston & Philip G. Pardey, 2025. "R&D lags in economic models," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(6), pages 842-862, August.
    6. Arne Henningsen & Guy Low & David Wuepper & Tobias Dalhaus & Hugo Storm & Dagim Belay & Stefan Hirsch, 2024. "Estimating Causal Effects with Observational Data: Guidelines for Agricultural and Applied Economists," IFRO Working Paper 2024/03, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    7. Pradesha, Angga & Pauw, Karl & Siddig, Khalid H. A. & Thurlow, James, 2024. "Reimagining Sustainable Intensification: A Novel Application of Modern Portfolio Theory in a General Equilibrium Framework," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343793, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Mamun, Abdullah, 2024. "Farm subsidies and global agricultural productivity," IFPRI discussion papers 2245, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    9. Bharadwaj, Prashant & Fenske, James & Kala, Namrata & Mirza, Rinchan Ali, 2020. "The Green revolution and infant mortality in India," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    10. Tomich, Thomas P. & Lidder, Preetmoninder & Coley, Mariah & Gollin, Douglas & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Webb, Patrick & Carberry, Peter, 2019. "Food and agricultural innovation pathways for prosperity," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 1-15.
    11. Júlio Vicente Cateia & Maurício Vaz Lobo Bittencourt & Terciane Sabadini Carvalho & Luc Savard, 2023. "Funding schemes for infrastructure investment and poverty alleviation in Africa: Evidence from Guinea‐Bissau," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(6), pages 1505-1529, August.
    12. Hans Gersbach & Ulrich Schetter & Maik T. Schneider, 2021. "Macroeconomic Rationales For Public Investments In Science," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(2), pages 575-599, April.
    13. Scott Duke Kominers & Xiaosheng Mu & Alexander Peysakhovich, 2019. "Paying for Attention: The Impact of Information Processing Costs on Bayesian Inference," Working Papers 2019-31, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    14. Richard J. Arend, 2020. "Strategic decision-making under ambiguity: a new problem space and a proposed optimization approach," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(3), pages 1231-1251, November.
    15. Bruno Caprettini & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2020. "Rage against the Machines: Labor-Saving Technology and Unrest in Industrializing England," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 305-320, September.
    16. Jeffrey D. Michler & Dewan Abdullah Al Rafi & Jonathan Giezendanner & Anna Josephson & Valerien O. Pede & Elizabeth Tellman, 2024. "Impact Evaluations in Data Poor Settings: The Case of Stress-Tolerant Rice Varieties in Bangladesh," Papers 2409.02201, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2025.
    17. Kym Anderson, 2021. "Food policy in a more volatile climate and trade environment," Departmental Working Papers 2021-25, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.
    18. Bharadwaj, Prashant & Ali Mirza, Rinchan, 2019. "Displacement and development: Long term impacts of population transfer in India," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-1.
    19. Michael Bernardi & Christa Hainz & Paulina Maier & Maria Waldinger, 2023. "A “Green Revolution” for Sub-Saharan Africa? Challenges and Opportunities," EconPol Policy Brief 54, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    20. Bergquist, Lauren & Faber, Benjamin & Fally, Thibault & Hoelzlein, Matthias & Miguel, Edward & Rodríguez-Clare, Andres, 2022. "Scaling Agricultural Policy Interventions," CEPR Discussion Papers 17737, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fpr:ifprid:169025. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifprius.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.