What Do Cage Free Eggs Have to Do with Gay Marriage?

Brandon McFadden, one of my inquisitive Ph.D. students, stopped by today and asked if I'd looked at the county-by-county breakdown of the vote on Proposition 37 on mandatory GMO labeling.  I hadn't, so we pulled up the maps.

Here is the county-by-county outcome for Prop 37 on mandatory GM labeling.

Brandon astutely pointed out that this map looked very similar to  the one on the gay marriage proposition back in 2008 (a no vote on Prop 8 was essential a vote in favor of gay marriage).

Back in 2008, there was also a ballot initiative (Prop 2) that (in essence) banned battery cages in egg production.  This map also looks very similar to the one above on Prop 8 in 2008.  So, Brandon down loaded the data from Prop 2 and Prop 8 in 2008 and did a little analysis somewhat like one we conducted earlier (the final voting tallies for Prop 37 aren't yet available in downloadable format).

Here is what he found:

(fraction of county voting for Prop 2 in 2008) = 0.326 + 0.572 x (fraction of county voting NO on Prop 8).

A hypothetical county with everyone voting no on Prop 8 (for gay marriage)  would be expected to have 32.6+57.2=89.8% voting yes on Prop 2 (for banning battery cages).  By contrast, a hypothetical county with everyone voting yes on prop 8 (against gay marriage  would be expected to have  32.6% voting yes for prop 2 (against banning cages).  

This little equation explains a remarkable 87% of the variation in voting outcomes associated with Prop 2!  A vote against Prop 8 was almost a guaranteed yes vote for Prop 2.  The people who want gay marriage are apparently also the same people who want cage free chickens.  

So, that raises the question I posed as the title of this post: What do cage free eggs have to do with gay marriage?  I might similarly ask: What does GMO labeling have to do with gay marriage?

Ostensibly, gay marriage has nothing to do with eggs or GMOs.  Yet, there seems to be a clear underlying factor (probably political ideology) that is driving votes on all three issues.  But, the facts on these propositions are so very different that is hard to imagine most reasonable people falling in line on all three.  

The results seem to suggest interesting areas of research related to political ideology and food choice.

A Little Election Eve Fun

Apparently McDonald's is the most bi-partisan restaurant chain and Coca-Cola is the most bi-partisan food brand. 

Which do you think are the most left- and right- leaning?

Check out the following charts from this web page

Neuroeconomics of Food Choice

The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a piece last week on the need for more neuroeconomic research.  

While I am a bit unsure of where the field is heading (and in some cases it is over-hyped), I do think there are fascinating things to be learned.   That's one of the reasons why I'm involved in a project with researchers at KSU, UMKC, and KU-med, where we are studying how people make choices between foods produced with controversial technologies while observing their brain responses via fMRI.  The ability of plant and food scientists to innovate depends on people's acceptance of technologies, and I'm hopeful that we can provide insight into this matter.

Right now we have 50 observations collected (which is actually quite a large sample size for an fMRI study), and we are in the process of writing up several papers.  So stay tuned for our findings.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with the optimistic closing sentences from the Chronicle article related to whether economist shoulds be spending their time on neuro-imaging: 

The only way to find out, he says, is to do it. And if it works, if a model of a mental process improves an economist's ability to predict what people will do, "then I think neuroeconomics could be very big."

Can Labeling Actually Harm Consumers?

That was the question asked in a recent study Stephan Marette and I just published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Industrial Organization.  ​The answer is "maybe."  

Traditional economic models assume that more information (as long as it is accurate) can only help consumers (so long as the cost of providing the information isn't higher than the benefit).  After all, if a consumer doesn't find the information useful, it can simply be ignored.  ​

But, this model assumes consumers are perfectly informed about all controversial issues they confront and that they can fully pay attention to all these competing issues.​

What we show in our paper is that when consumers' attentions are limited (as they almost certainly are), that providing information (even if it is accurate) can - in some cases - actually make the consumer worse off.  How?  Because more information about one topic (like whether foods are made with genetically engineered ingredients) might distract consumers from paying attention from other important topics (like the number of carbs in the food) which has a bigger impact on long-term health.  ​

Here is the paper abstract:​

Information and labeling are popular food policy instruments because of their presumed positive influence on consumer welfare. In a one-good case with unlimited attention, we show consumer welfare is always improved with the provision of accurate information. However, in a two-good case with limited attention, we show that consumer welfare is not always improved with the provision of accurate information. When attention is constrained, welfare may fall with information provision policies irrespective of their costs. The results suggest information and labeling polices may sometimes be counterproductive when attention is limited.

Don't Let the Perfect be the Enemy of the Good

That's how I'd sum up Matt Ridley's excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal​.  He starts by arguing that:

Generally, technologies are judged on their net benefits, not on the claim that they are harmless: The good effects of, say, the automobile and aspirin outweigh their dangers. Today, arguably, adopting certain new technologies is harder not just because of a policy of precaution but because of a bias in much of the media against reporting the benefits.

​He rightly argues that negative articles on topics like biotechnology and shale gas make catchier headlines and drown out all the positive information.  Case in point?

 A recent French study claimed that both pesticides and GM corn fed to cancer-susceptible strains of rats produced an increase in tumors. The study has come in for withering criticism from mainstream scientists for its opaque data, small samples, unsatisfactory experimental design and unconventional statistical analysis, yet it has still gained headlines world-wide. (In published responses, the authors have stood by their results.)

The French study contradicts a Japanese paper that used larger samples, longer trials and accepted experimental designs, yet received virtually no notice because it found no increase in cancer in rats fed on GM crops. This is a problem that’s bedeviled GM technology from the start: Studies that find harm are shouted from the media rooftops, those that do not are ignored.

​He goes on to document the potential environmental benefits from GMOs.   

While ​no one would argue we should ignore the potential dangers of new technologies (particularly biotechnologies), it would be equally crazy to ignore their potential benefits.