Labelling and co-existence regulation of GMOs and non-GMOs : an economic perspective
Résumé
This chapter examines how economic theory can enlighten which arguments favour and which ones opposelabelling and coexistence regulations for GMOs and non-GMOs, which type of regulation should be favoured, and how different regulations affect various interest groups. To this aim, we survey consumers' opinions and choices about GMOs in feed and food through the vast body of economic literature on this topic. We analyze the relevance of a GM/non-GM public labelling policy as well as the effects of this policy's implementation, focusing mainly on the mandatory versus voluntary characteristics of labelling. We describe the nature ofexternality costsof coexistence for non-GMO as well as GMO producers, in the absence of any coexistence regulation. We detail the economic arguments for coupling an ex ante safety regulation with an ex post liability regulation at the farm level in order to regulate coexistence.