Abstract
Experimental auctions were used to examine the effects of alternative descriptions of food irradiation on willingness-to-pay for a pork sandwich irradiated to control Trichinella. As expected, a favorable description of irradiation increased willingness-to-pay, and an unfavorable description decreased willingness-to-to-pay. Notably, when subjects were given both the pro- and anti-irradiation descriptions, the negative description dominated and willingness-to-pay decreased. This was true even though the source of the negative information was identified as being a consumer advocacy group and the information itself was written in a manner that was non-scientific. If this is a widespread phenomenon, the process provides those who make inaccurate claims about new technologies a greater incentive than would otherwise be the case.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 75-95 |
Number of pages | 21 |
Journal | Journal of Risk and Uncertainty |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2002 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Auctions
- Bidding
- Food safety
- Information
- Irradiation
- Risk
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Accounting
- Finance
- Economics and Econometrics