In most environments, information is critical to consumersï¾’ decision making. Consumers have prior beliefs about quality and price of goods and services and obtain new information which is used to update these prior beliefs or to form posterior beliefs, i.e., Bayesian learning. New food...

To be effective, groups that disseminate information need the trust of consumers. When multiple groups provide conflicting information on a new product or process like GM-foods, consumers place different levels of trust in the various sources. We present a model of the contributions of personal...

Food products containing genetically modified (GM) ingredients have entered the market over the past decade. The biotech industry and environmental groups have disseminating conflicting private information about GM foods. This paper develops a unique methodology for valuing independent...

Public debate continues over whether the United States should regulate genetically modified (GM) foods by imposing a mandatory labeling policy. This paper develops a model that shows that a voluntary GM-labeling policy results in higher welfare than a regulated mandatory GM-labeling policy, if...

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...

Genetically modified (GM) foods have caused many controversies. One important controversy relates to tolerance?the impurity rate that is tolerated before a commodity must be labeled as genetically modified. Currently, the United States does not have a specific tolerance or threshold level for GM...

This paper addressed the puzzling resistance of Presidents of southern African countries to food aid in 2002, given near certain starvation and long-term negative health effects of malnutrition of their constituents.  First, I show that NGOs led by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are...