Holly Wang , a professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University, will lead a seminar exploring enthusiasm for cell-cultivated products.
Her free talk - "Consumer Acceptance of Cell-Cultivated Salmon: A Real Clock-Proxy Auction" - is scheduled for noon on Wednesday, Dec. 3, in 157 Hosler Building on the University Park campus. It's part of the fall seminar series hosted by the Initiative for Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (EEEPI).
Wang will discuss an experiment evaluating consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for cell-cultivated products. In the U.S., recent regulatory approvals apply to one cell-cultivated salmon and two cell-cultivated chicken products. Consumer preferences for such products remain largely unexplored beyond hypothetical studies, Wang said in an abstract.
"We investigate consumer WTP through a clock-proxy bundle action experiment that incorporates both the actual products and a visit to the firm, Wildtype, as part of the bundle," she said in the abstract. "Preliminary findings indicate a positive WTP of about $15 for a 2-ounce portion of cell-cultivated salmon in contexts such as fine-dining restaurants, deli counters and grocery-store refrigerated cases."
Further, educational information about the production process - emphasizing sustainability, exclusivity and quality - substantially increases WTP, Wang said. She conducted the experiment with Yizhou Hua, a research associate in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University.
Wang also is a fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. She is a former faculty member at Washington State University and Purdue University. She received her doctoral degree in agricultural economics from Michigan State University.
Her research covers topics such as agricultural policies, risks and finances; the interaction among agricultural production, food consumption and the environment; consumer preferences; food safety; e-commerce; and international markets. She has authored more than 140 journal articles and is co-editor-in-chief of the journal Food Policy and a co-editor of China Agricultural Economic Review.
Wang has been president of the Chinese Economists Society, executive board director of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association and chair of several international conferences.
About EEEPI
Established in 2011, EEEPI operates as a University-wide initiative at Penn State with support from the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute and the Institute of Energy and the Environment. EEEPI seeks to catalyze research in energy and environmental systems economics across the University and to build a world-class group of economists with interests in interdisciplinary collaboration.
