Effects of Information on Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Golden Rice

Abstract

We examine the effects of information on consumer bidding behavior using a uniform‐price auction with four units supply for golden rice. Our findings show that mean willingness to pay (WTP) bids are highest under positive information, followed by no information, negative information, and unexpectedly lowest with two‐sided information. Participants might have put more weight on the negative when faced with both positive and negative information. There is also a minor difference in WTP with respect to the reference price between positive information and no information. Furthermore, the marginal effect on WTP of positive information vis‐à‐vis no information is minimal. This suggests that the positive information faced by consumers might not be compelling enough to drastically increase WTP bids for a genetically modified product such as golden rice.