Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
representative, regulators, rulers) consider the impacts of proposed policies on the per-
ceived welfare of various groups, and assign weights to these perceived welfare levels in
making their choices. Policymaking is evolving, and decision makers update the assess-
ment of impacts of policy proposals based on new information that may be obtained
by exchange and dialogue between the interest groups. (For a more detailed technical
version of this dynamic model, see Hochman, Graff, and Zilberman, 2012.) What results
is a process in which each of the various groups seeks, in the public debate, to shape the
voters' perceptions in a direction that generally serves its own interests (Herring, 2008).
In Europe, there has been a vibrant process of environmentalists and industry aiming to
inform and shift public opinions about GM (e.g., Gaskell et al., 2005).
Applying the Model to Explain the European Policy Regime
We now apply this dynamic voting framework to analyze the regulatory regime of GM
crop agriculture as it unfolded in Europe in the 1990s. Specifically, we consider whether
differences between U.S. regulations and European regulations primarily reflect differ-
ences in consumer preferences, as many contemporary accounts argue or imply (see, for
example, Bernauer, 2003; Sheldon, 2004). We look in detail first at the interests of agri-
cultural inputs producers and then at the interests of farmers and of consumers. We then
consider the respective political weights and interactions among these various groups as
they have influenced European regulators.
As a starting point, we consider differences in the innovative capacities of the U.S. and
European agricultural input industries. Patent data on agricultural biotechnology and
agricultural chemical technologies indicate broad national differences in innovative
capacity (Graff and Zilberman, 2007). In agricultural biotechnology, American inven-
tors, in both academia and in industry, have been far more prolific in the quantity and the
quality of patents granted to them than have European inventors (Graff and Zilberman,
2007). One metric used to rank the quality or value of a patent is the number of cita-
tions that it receives from other patents. Analysis shows that the agricultural biotech-
nology patents granted to U.S. inventors since 1980 have historically garnered roughly
10 times more patent citations than the agricultural biotechnology patents granted to
European inventors since 1980, and that the imbalance was particularly striking in the
early foundational developments in the 1980s and early 1990s before there was much
public awareness of the technology (Graff and Zilberman, 2007). By comparison, agro-
chemical patents granted to U.S. inventors have historically garnered a similar number
of citations compared to the agrochemical patents granted to European inventors.
In summary, American companies enjoyed an innovative comparative advantage
in agricultural biotechnology innovation when European companies enjoyed a com-
parative advantage in agricultural chemical innovation. European (and particularly
the German) chemical industry has long been the globally dominant innovator and
supplier of agricultural chemicals. For example, in 2001, global sales of agricultural
biotechnology or genetic crop-protection products experienced annual growth of
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