Brooks, Kathleen R.

Lusk, Jayson L.

English

Research Papers in Economics

Public and Private Preferences for Policies  
Related to Meat and Milk from Clones 
 
 
 
Kathleen R. Brooks 
Oklahoma State University 
Department of Agricultural Economics 
423 Agricultural Hall 
Stillwater, OK 74078 
405-744-6173 
kblubau@okstate.edu 
 
and 
 
Jayson L. Lusk 
Oklahoma State University 
Department of Agricultural Economics 
411 Agricultural Hall 
Stillwater, OK 74078 
405-744-7465 
jayson.lusk@okstate.edu 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Poster prepared for presentation at the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association 2010 
AAEA,CAES, & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado, July 25-27, 2010 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Copyright 2010 by Kathleen R. Brooks and Jayson L. Lusk. All rights reserved. Readers may 
make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided 
that this copyright notice appears on all such copies. 
 Public WTP (contingent valuation question)
Public preferences measured using a contingent valuation question focused on a ban
on the practice of animal cloning
Percentage price increases (5%, 10%, 15%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) were
randomly chosen for each individual
Answers to this question provide a direct estimate of people’s WTP for that
policy – using interval censored regression as illustrated in the approach of
Cameron (1988).
Private WTP (choice experiments)
Four different attributes used to construct the choice experiments used to measure 
private preferences
Responses used to determine attribute-based utility function
Estimated using MNL model
Used to calculate the welfare effects of policies such as a ban on cloned milk and
ground beef.
Public and Private Preferences for Policies Related to 
Meat and Milk from Clones
Kathleen R. Brooks and Jayson L. Lusk,   Oklahoma State University
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the USDA-ERS who 
provided funding to collect the data involved in 
this research.
Introduction
Surveys and experiments are often conducted to determine
consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for new products in a market. The
preferences for product attributes inferred from these studies are often used to
draw implications about citizen’s WTP for food policies. But, are people’s
preferences that are reflected in private shopping choices reflective of their
preferences for public policies? Hamilton, Sunding, and Zilberman (2003)
suggest that the answer may be no: WTP for product attributes and
referendum voting choices may not be equal.
These techniques are analyzed by applying them to animal cloning
technology and consumers preferences for banning the use of it in meat and
milk production.
January 2008 U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “meat and
milk from clones of cattle, swine, and goats, and the offspring of clones
from any species traditionally consumed as food, are as safe to eat as
food from conventionally bred animals.”
Several large food processors and retailers announced their intention to
prohibit the sales of products from cloned animals.
Are consumers WTP to ban products from cloned animals?
References
Cameron, T.A. 1988. “A New Paradigm for Valuing Non-market Goods Using referendum Data: Maximum
Likelihood Estimation by Censored Logistic Regression.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
15:355-379.
Hamilton, S.F., D.L. Sunding, and D. Zilberman. 2003. “Public Goods and the Value of Product Quality
Regulations: The Case of Food Safety.” Journal of Public Economics. 87:799-817.
Objectives
To determine whether people’s WTP for policies to ban the use of cloning
technology in meat and milk production as inferred from peoples private
shopping choices (i.e., choice-based conjoint experiments) are the same as
inferred from direct questions about the public desirability of such policies
(i.e., contingent valuation).
Data & Methods
1,825 web-based surveys administered to Knowledge Networks (KN) panel
of respondents
 Respondents selected using random digit dialing techniques
True probability sample based on the general U.S. population
Choice experiments regarding which meat or milk option (or none) a
consumer would buy when grocery shopping were used to measure private
preferences
Contingent valuation question focused on a ban on the practice of animal
cloning was used to measure public preferences
Results and Discussion
Based on public choices, consumers are WTP to ban meat and milk products from
cloned animals
Based on private choices, consumers are not WTP to ban meat and milk products
from cloned animals
Results reveal a policy reversal between consumers preferences reflected in their
private shopping choices compared to their preferences for public policy.
What causes the differences in consumer preferences?
Voting as a citizen
Constrain self (Don’t want to lose options in the future)
Constrain others (Don’t want to impose views on others)
Characteristics of respondents
Figure 1. Example milk choice question presented to survey 
respondents
Figure 2. Example beef choice question presented to survey 
respondents
Clone Beef Calves - Courtesy of Trans 
Ova Genetics. Picture from clonesafety.org
Jewel and her clone Diamond, winner of the Winter 
Yearling Class in the Jr. Show and 4th in the Open 
Show at the World Dairy Expo. From clonesafety.org
Contact Information
Kathleen Brooks: kblubau@okstate.edu
Jayson Lusk:  jayson.lusk@okstate.edu
Milk attributes
•Price/gallon ($2.99 or $5.99)
•Fat Content (Whole, 1%, 2%, or Skim)
•No rbST used vs rbST used
•Use of cloning (Non-coned, cloned, 
offspring of cloned animal)
Ground beef attributes
•Price/pound ($1.99 or $3.99)
•Percent lean (80% or 90%)
•Percent Saturated Fat (5% or 10%)
•Use of cloning (Non-coned, cloned, 
offspring of cloned animal
1.729 1.701
-0.783
-0.976 -1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
Beef Private WTP Milk Private WTP Beef Public WTP Milk Public WTP
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Differences Between  Private and Public WTP to Ban 
Animal Cloning
Figure 3. Example of contingent valuation question presented 
to survey respondents
Public WTP
Private WTP
* Note: Differences are statistically significant between public and private WTP.  

Public and Private Preferences for Policies Related to Meat and Milk from Clones

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