Team:HZAU-China/eco/3

From 2014.igem.org

(Difference between revisions)

Latest revision as of 02:36, 18 October 2014

<!DOCTYPE html> 2014HZAU-China

Economics

Empirical Data—Surveys done between 2000 and 2004

Lusk et al (2003) did a cross national survey in 2000 with 566 valid observations in the US [30]. According to the survey, US consumer had the least knowledge and least concern of GM safety compared with France, German or the UK back in 2000, and was the most sensitive to the change in price and the good consumer experience provided by GMOs.

Burton et al (2001) did an investigation of the consumer attitude towards GMOs in UK with 1626 valid observations [31]. To eliminate unwarranted prominence resulted by “a topic as contentious as GM food”, the investigators carefully avoided letting consumers guess the purpose of the investigation; instead, they hid it in the context of food system, and the attitudes to GM foods were actually inferred by carefully constructed models. The survey identified three groups of consumers: the infrequent, occasional, and committed consumers of organic food, which have different responses towards GM foods. The authors analyzed them with a heavily tested choice model which yielded many interesting results, such as that GM food was only one albeit very important concern of food safety, consumers calculate the willingness to pay to avoid the GMOs, and that the difference in attitudes differ significantly towards modified plants and introduced genes from other organisms, etc.

Bredahl did a cross-national survey of 2031 samples on the consumer attitudes and purchase intentions of GM yogurt and beer in Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom [32]. Estimated error (which passed the test) caused by language translation was taken into account. The result showed that the Danish and Germans had the most negative attitudes, the Italians the most positive, with the English in between. Very noteworthy is that the appendix of the essay was a list of elicited beliefs in the attitude model, including product and process related benefits and risks, as well as the normative, control, difficulty, and moral beliefs.

A face-to-face survey of 634 samples was conducted in Wuhan by Professors Liu Pengcheng et al (2004) of Huazhong Agricultural University in year 2004, to investigate the attitudes and expectations of consumers towards GMO [33]. From their report we can see, the sampling frame was carefully designed and cheap talk was employed to reduce bias.

Cheap talk is a special type of signaling game in the decision theory where the information is incomplete [34]. Incomplete means at least one player does not necessarily know the types, strategies or payoffs of the other players [35]. Cheap talk is the kind of signal given to the receiver by the information possessor that requires almost no cost. Cheap talk scripts which are lines that contain explanations of a suggestive nature that have been proven to be effective only to those who already agree with certain ideas suggested by the scrip. Cheap talk script is usually used in surveys to eliminate bias [36].

When investigators implied that GMOs can reduce pesticides, are more nutritious, the ratio of ``very willing'' to buy were 30.8 and 40.6; when investigators implied that GMOs might have unforeseen consequences to human health or have unforeseen influences to nature, the rate was reduced to 2.4 and 2.6. And about a quarter of consumers were impassive towards the investigation and were either ignorant of GMOs or didn’t care about the risks. According to their report, the consumers in Wuhan exhibited much ignorance of GMOs in year 2004, and the tendency to doubt increase with the increase of education background.

Carlsson et al (2007) did a mail survey of 1600 samples in Sweden in year 2004 [37]. They also used a cheap talk script to eliminate bias. The result mainly explored the marginal willingness to pay (WTP) between a labeling system and a ban on GM fodder, and it showed that Swedish consumer were willing to ``pay a significantly higher product price to ensure a total ban on the GM fodders'', and that their general attitude towards GMOs were pretty negative.

Chen et al (2007) did a consumer survey of 564 useful samples on consumer attitudes in Taiwan, China in 2003 [38]. The data was subject to heavy testing, and factors such as knowledge, trust, perceived benefits and risks were measured. Several results coincided with Liu Pengcheng’s survey: that the concept of GMO were relatively novel to people, that with the increase in knowledge come increased doubts, etc.

And there are still many, such as surveys done in Norway [39], China [40] or the developing world in general [41]; and comparisons such as the drastic difference between EU and US [42].

What I want to say is that these surveys all used various kinds of measure to eliminate what bias people might have about GMOs, and what they did was only a faithful account of their observations. The phrase market failure might have been mentioned somewhere in the analyses and it also exhibited the kind of bias I mentioned earlier (will look into later), but the bias must have been a subconscious one, since they really went to great lengths to eliminate bias and unwarranted tendencies that they realized exist.

@@ Line 148: / Line 148: @@
          <!-- logo start here -->
          <div id="logo-left">
-             <a href="https://igem.org/Team.cgi?year=2014&team_name=HZAU-China"><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2014/b/bb/Hazuteamlogo918.png" alt="HZAU-China" /></a>
+             <a href="https://igem.org/Team.cgi?year=2014&team_name=HZAU-China"><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2014/4/4c/Hzau-home-lllogo.png" alt="HZAU-China" /></a>
          </div>
          <!-- logo end here -->
@@ Line 164: / Line 164: @@
                  <li class="dropdown"><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Project">Project</a>
 		    <ul>
+                        <li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Design"><span>-</span>Overview</a></li>
                          <li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Background"><span>-</span>Background</a></li>
-			<li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Design"><span>-</span>Design overview</a></li>
 			<li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Input"><span>-</span>Input module</a></li>
 			<li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Processing"><span>-</span>Processing module</a></li>
@@ Line 174: / Line 174: @@
 		<li class="dropdown"><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Review">Wetlab</a>
                      <ul>
-                        <li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Overview"><span>-</span>Overview</a></li>
+                         <li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Overview"><span>-</span>Overview</a></li>
 			<li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Construction"><span>-</span>Construction</a></li>
 			<li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Characterization"><span>-</span>Characterization</a></li>
+                        <li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Help"><span>-</span>Help each other</a></li>
                          <li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Protocol"><span>-</span>Protocol</a></li>
                          <li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:HZAU-China/Labnotes"><span>-</span>Labnotes</a></li>
@@ Line 243: / Line 244: @@
 </section>
 <!-- breadcrumb end here -->
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
+<h2 align=center>Empirical Data—Surveys done between 2000 and 2004</h2>
 <!-- maincontent start here -->
@@ Line 249: / Line 252: @@
           <div class="eleven columns">
           <div class="offset-by-one columns">
-<h2 align=center>Overview</h2>
- <h5>In this part, we have:</h5>
-<strong><li>thoroughly demonstrated four types of markets that GMO could end up with, which is also what potential synthetic biology products might meet one day;<strong>
-<strong><li>utilised analytical tools from game theory, a branch of information economics;</strong>
-<strong><li>evaluated our method by looking at its assumptions and found, to our dismay, the unwarranted ground of rationality;</strong>
-<strong><li>and spoke of its implication for policy making in the future.</strong>
-<h5>Overview</h5>
-<p class="highlighttext">A common analogy for what synthetic biologists are doing is "vehicle constructing" or "car constructing". What our team has designed in our project is a step toward the "bacteria amphibious vehicle", or "bacteria transformer". As our project has a somewhat "fundamental" aura about it that might lead to a slight or tremendous shift of perspective in synthetic biology's future, we think perhaps it's yet too early for concrete policy suggestions concerning something that's still in its infancy.
+<p class="highlighttext"><li>
+Lusk et al (2003) did a cross national survey in 2000 with 566 valid observations in the US [30]. According to the survey, US consumer had the least knowledge and least concern of GM safety compared with France, German or the UK back in 2000, and was the most sensitive to the change in price and the good consumer experience provided by GMOs.
 </p>
-<p class="highlighttext"> However, not giving concrete policy suggestions doesn't mean we should be doing nothing. Instead, even more should be done in preparation for what policy need that may arise in the future. Such as, on what ground should these policies be made.
+<p class="highlighttext"><li>
- </p>
+Burton et al (2001) did an investigation of the consumer attitude towards GMOs in UK with 1626 valid observations [31]. To eliminate unwarranted prominence resulted by “a topic as contentious as GM food”, the investigators carefully avoided letting consumers guess the purpose of the investigation; instead, they hid it in the context of food system, and the attitudes to GM foods were actually inferred by carefully constructed models. The survey identified three groups of consumers: the infrequent, occasional, and committed consumers of organic food, which have different responses towards GM foods. The authors analyzed them with a heavily tested choice model which yielded many interesting results, such as that GM food was only one albeit very important concern of food safety, consumers calculate the willingness to pay to avoid the GMOs, and that the difference in attitudes differ significantly towards modified plants and introduced genes from other organisms, etc.
-<p class="highlighttext">Synthetic biologists may one day want to market their proud products like GMOs. But instead of rushing into the deep waters of the market, many things should be considered beforehand, and perhaps concerns should be more than optimism in all time. Evaluating potential market state is one of these concerns, and since synthetic biology products are yet to put in much appearances in the market, we can look at how its more mature cousin GMO has been faring so far. From the various accounts of many papers that studied the GMO market, we get a rough picture. By their account, if use one word for a generalization of the market state of GMO, it would be "fiasco". (for more detail, see our report)
-  </p>
-<p class="highlighttext">Almost all the scholars who made policy suggestions used cases such as Zimbabwe's rejection of GMO aid, EU's restriction of GMO trade and many people's GMO-reluctance as evidences of the "failure" state of GMO market, and many deduced that, one reason for such failure is because GMO is a "Lemon Market", which, according to the Nobel Prize Winner G.Akerlof, is the market instance when the inferior commodity gradually take over the market because of information asymmetry.
-  </p>
-<p class="highlighttext">Therefore, many policies suggestions are aimed at promoting the information symmetry between the "knowledge giving" party and the "general public". Safety tests are spoken of as something just like a necessary procedure and nothing more than a procedure, like a cookbook. Any GMO just need to follow its steps one by one, and it will pass, and it will be safe; and people's rejection of this safe-claimed product will be a sign of ignorance or "information asymmetry" and need to be "helped". Safety tests should be "ensured", so the safe ones will not suffer wrongly because of those unsafe ones whihc turned the market into a "lemon", despite the possibility that the tests themselves might be doubtable.
 </p>
-<p class="highlighttext">We trust that most of the policy makers at least attempt to wield justice in their policies. However, attempting to do so doesn't guarantee succeeding in doing so. The almost one-sided undertone prevailing in the academic circles that has the \textit{a priori} assumption of the validity of "strict" safety tests shows the hubris side of science, or scientists. For how are they so sure that there is not an information asymmetry between themselves and their biological products, or rather, between science and nature?
+<p class="highlighttext"><li>
+Bredahl did a cross-national survey of 2031 samples on the consumer attitudes and purchase intentions of GM yogurt and beer in Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom [32]. Estimated error (which passed the test) caused by language translation was taken into account. The result showed that the Danish and Germans had the most negative attitudes, the Italians the most positive, with the English in between. Very noteworthy is that the appendix of the essay was a list of elicited beliefs in the attitude model, including product and process related benefits and risks, as well as the normative, control, difficulty, and moral beliefs.
 </p>
-<p class="highlighttext">Because our project this year chose the Track of information processing, we were extra-sensitive on anything that contain the word "information", including "information economics".
+<p class="highlighttext"><li>
+A face-to-face survey of 634 samples was conducted in Wuhan by Professors Liu Pengcheng et al (2004) of Huazhong Agricultural University in year 2004, to investigate the attitudes and expectations of consumers towards GMO [33]. From their report we can see, the sampling frame was carefully designed and cheap talk was employed to reduce bias.
 </p>
-<p class="highlighttext">Many scholars claim the GMO markets to be failing, but theoretical demonstration nor detailed description is not given Perhaps it's because they think it's too obvious for them and that a step-by-step demonstration might look schoolbook-like. However, we don't think anyone aside from those who have strong background in economics will understand the details, so, in our report, we thoroughly described four types of markets that GMO could end up with by utilising analytical tools from game theory, a branch of information economics, to construct the context in which "the failing market" is spoken of, as a first step. Serious scholars of economics could skip it as an "education" section for people from other disciplines and just go ahead.
+<p class="highlighttext">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+Cheap talk is a special type of signaling game in the decision theory where the information is incomplete [34]. Incomplete means at least one player does not necessarily know the types, strategies or payoffs of the other players [35]. Cheap talk is the kind of signal given to the receiver by the information possessor that requires almost no cost. Cheap talk scripts which are lines that contain explanations of a suggestive nature that have been proven to be effective only to those who already agree with certain ideas suggested by the scrip. Cheap talk script is usually used in surveys to eliminate bias [36].
 </p>
-<p class="highlighttext">Then, we made a summary of six large-sample surveys about people's attitudes toward GMO done across the globe in different countries and areas by former scholars, as an empirical evidence from which the scholars draw support of their claim.
+<p class="highlighttext">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+When investigators implied that GMOs can reduce pesticides, are more nutritious, the ratio of ``very willing'' to buy were 30.8 and 40.6; when investigators implied that GMOs might have unforeseen consequences to human health or have unforeseen influences to nature, the rate was reduced to 2.4 and 2.6. And about a quarter of consumers were impassive towards the investigation and were either ignorant of GMOs or didn’t care about the risks. According to their report, the consumers in Wuhan exhibited much ignorance of GMOs in year 2004, and the tendency to doubt increase with the increase of education background.
 </p>
-<p class="highlighttext">And then we analysed the assumptions made at the beginning when we are laying the outline of this whole context, and found out the fallibility of one assumption which could lead to potential inversion of the verdict: the rationality assumption, which has been demonstrated by behavioral economists to be fallible.
+<p class="highlighttext"><li>
+Carlsson et al (2007) did a mail survey of 1600 samples in Sweden in year 2004 [37]. They also used a cheap talk script to eliminate bias. The result mainly explored the marginal willingness to pay (WTP) between a labeling system and a ban on GM fodder, and it showed that Swedish consumer were willing to ``pay a significantly higher product price to ensure a total ban on the GM fodders'', and that their general attitude towards GMOs were pretty negative.
 </p>
-<p class="highlighttext">That rationality could be fallible has been realized by people, but knowing something doesn't equal to doing by its creed. This important discovery of the behavioral economists are not put into practice enough, I'm afraid; at least not when it comes to the policy concerns of GMO.
+<p class="highlighttext"><li>
+Chen et al (2007) did a consumer survey of 564 useful samples on consumer attitudes in Taiwan, China in 2003 [38]. The data was subject to heavy testing, and factors such as knowledge, trust, perceived benefits and risks were measured. Several results coincided with Liu Pengcheng’s survey: that the concept of GMO were relatively novel to people, that with the increase in knowledge come increased doubts, etc.
 </p>
-<p class="highlighttext">So, finally, we will quote the ending paragraphs of our report as a reminder for potential GMO policy makers.
+<p class="highlighttext">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+And there are still many, such as surveys done in Norway [39], China [40] or the developing world in general [41]; and comparisons such as the drastic difference between EU and US [42].
 </p>
-<p class="highlighttext"><span style="font-style:italic;"> "No one can claim truth when Truth is undefined, so there will always be confliction from two different sides. Instead of trying to convert the other to one’s side, both sides should actually listen to each other and collaborate to deepen the understanding of the matter that lies at the heart of the confliction. And as for the truth, both sides better be saying: ``Let time decide.''
+<p class="highlighttext">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
- </span></p>
+What I want to say is that these surveys all used various kinds of measure to eliminate what bias people might have about GMOs, and what they did was only a faithful account of their observations. The phrase market failure might have been mentioned somewhere in the analyses and it also exhibited the kind of bias I mentioned earlier (will look into later), but the bias must have been a subconscious one, since they really went to great lengths to eliminate bias and unwarranted tendencies that they realized exist.
-<p class="highlighttext"><span style="font-style:italic;">   And before more is revealed in the course of time, we better hope for the best but assume the worst. After all, better be safe than sorry, and policy makers should look inward and examine their innermost beliefs for any bias that may just be lurking under their attempts, albeit sincere, for justice."
- </span></p>
+</p>
-<h5><a href="">1.Motivation</a></h5>
-<h5><a href="">2.The Four Types of Possible GMO Market Condition</a></h5>
-<h5><a href="">3.Empirical Data—Surveys done between 2000 and 2004</a></h5>
-<h5><a href="">4.The Unwarranted Rationality Groundfor Policy Making Related to Market Failure</a></h5>
-<p class="highlighttext">A pdf Version of our Report is <a href="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2014/a/a0/Economics_overview.pdf"><strong>here</strong></a></p>
     <div class="clear"></div>
          <div class="divider"></div>