EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Consumer's Resistance to Genetically Modified Foods: The Role of Information in an Uncertain Environment

Wallace Huffman, Matthew Rousu, Jason Shogren and Abebayehu Tegene

Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, 2004, vol. 2, issue 2, 15

Abstract: Genetically modified (GM) foods have been engulfed in considerable controversy, and the early optimism has been dampened. Information issues--labeling and asymmetric information--are central to the GM-food debate. Furthermore, it is important to understand the reaction in developed countries to GM-foods because they set the tone of the world market in grains, oilseeds, and animal products. New results are reported from a statistical analysis of the market characteristics that push consumers in a high-income country to resist GM foods, with an emphasis on negative information from environmental groups and third-party, verifiable information, which could neutralize private information distributed by interested parties. A unique sample of adult consumers participated in laboratory auctions of three food products with randomized labeling and information treatments. A key finding is that GM information supplied by environmental groups increases the probability that consumers are out of the market for GM-foods. Third-party verifiable information, however, dissipates most of the negative effect of the environmental group perspective. Selective adoption of GM crops seems likely to raise world welfare but Western Europe's banning of GM imports and technology will largely affect them negatively.

Keywords: GMOs; consumer demand; information; uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2202/1542-0485.1064 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
Working Paper: Consumers' Resistance to Genetically Modified Foods: The Role of Information in an Uncertain Environment (2004)
Working Paper: Consumer's Resistance to Genetically Modified Foods: The Role of Information in an Uncertain Environment (2004) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:bjafio:v:2:y:2004:i:2:n:8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/jafio/html

DOI: 10.2202/1542-0485.1064

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization is currently edited by Azzeddine Azzam

More articles in Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-31
Handle: RePEc:bpj:bjafio:v:2:y:2004:i:2:n:8