Human Enhancement Technologies: A Survey Experiment on Private Demand and Governance Preferences

Giovanni Immordino (), Mario Macis, Immacolata Marino () and Fabrizio Panebianco
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Giovanni Immordino: University of Naples Federico II and CSEF, https://csef.it/people/giovanni-immordino/
Mario Macis: Johns Hopkins University and NBER
Immacolata Marino: University of Naples Federico II and CSEF, https://csef.it/people/immacolata-marino/
Fabrizio Panebianco: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano

CSEF Working Papers from Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy

Abstract: When a new technology promises large private benefits but may impose social costs that markets do not price, demand need not reveal how citizens want it governed. We examine this using a nationally representative U.S. survey experiment (N=5,556) on human enhancement technologies (HET). The experiment randomizes benefit domain, mechanism, heritability, purpose, and risk across vignettes; for each respondent’s assigned vignette, we elicit stated adoption, preferred regulation, and ethical and societal concerns. Overall, about 53% would adopt. Framing the technology as enhancing rather than restorative lowers adoption by about five percentage points, as much as a severe side-effect profile. About 28% would not adopt at any benefit. This refusal is driven overwhelmingly by the enhancing framing rather than by risk, consistent with a non-compensatory constraint for a substantial subgroup. Most who would adopt still favor strict regulation, and most who would never adopt do not wish to forbid others from doing so. Productivity enhancement generates the most ethical concern of any attribute but attracts the least regulation, and respondents favor subsidizing rather than taxing its adoption, consistent with a concern about access rather than safety. Private demand is therefore an unreliable guide to the governance citizens want, and the divergence we document provides a basis for regulators seeking to align the direction of technical change with societal values and priorities.

Keywords: Human Enhancement Technologies; Survey Experiment; Private–Policy Alignment; Distributional Effects and Inequality; Productivity; Moral Foundations and Ethics. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D81 I18 J24 L51 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-lma
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