Over the past three decades, the world has witnessed economic growth accompanied by widening of income inequalities. In the face of rising income inequalities, it becomes imperative to ask what happens to the quality of various products provided in the market when economies experience economic...

Recent studies have analyzed the adoption of Bt cotton in the light of government seed price interventions. According to one view, reduction in seed prices enabled the farmers to buy seeds at lower prices and this resulted in the sudden surge in area under Bt cotton. The other view holds that...

The Indian government imposed a ceiling on the price of Bt cotton seeds in 2006. This paper aims to analyze the effect of such price intervention on the diffusion of Bt cotton in India. Using three variations of dynamic logistic models, diffusion paths in nine major cotton growing states from...

We assess the supply-side economic implications of introducing a strict mandatory labeling policy for genetically modified (GM) food in India as proposed in 2006. We apply our analysis to the case of cottonseed oil and soybean oil, two products that would be the first affected by such...

In 2006, India proposed a draft rule requiring the labeling of all genetically modified (GM) foods and products derived thereof. In this paper, we use primary and secondary market data to assess the economic implications of introducing such a mandatory labeling policy for GM food. We focus on...

"Labeling of genetically modified (GM) foods is a contentious issue and internationally, there is sharp division whether such labeling ought to be mandatory. This debate has reached India where the government has proposed mandatory labeling. In this context, this paper evaluates the optimal...

This paper examines the effect of environmental regulation on a firm’s incentives to invest in developing cheaper (clean-up) technologies in a model where consumers are willing to pay for environmentally clean technologies. It focuses on two types of policies: a BAT based policy and a...

The price for official Bt cotton seed in India in 2005 was Rs 1600. Concerns were raised that these prices are excessive because of the monopolistic market structure prevailing in the seed market and may in turn restrict the access to technology for resource poor farmers. The Indian government...

Much of the debate between the European and U.S. positions about labeling of genetically modified foods has been whether consumers perceive labels as a source of information or a signal to change behavior. In this paper, we provide an experimental framework for examining these roles of...