消費者偏好改變與基因改造食品強制標示經濟影響的一般均衡分析

Economic Impacts of Consumers’ Preference Change and GM Food Mandatory Labeling Policy: A General Equilibrium Analysis

我國衛生署已自2003年1月1日起對於以農產品型態進口之基因改造黃豆及基因改造玉米要求強制標示，而自2004及2005年起將分別針對基改黃豆、基改玉米初級及較高層次的加工食品強制標示。本研究採用消費者對品牌偏好的作法，分別在生產結構及消費結構中，將可能含基改成份的產品類別區分為不完全替代的基改產品及非基改產品，針對我國目前流通在市面上最主要的兩項基改作物—大豆和玉米，進行追溯強制標示制度的實證分析，同時考慮消費者選擇偏好等議題對我國農業、相關食品加工部門、以及總體經濟的影響評估。模擬結果顯示，追溯強制標示政策的影響層面，與國內消費者對產品的認知與偏好的選擇息息相關，即使標示政策對總體經濟影響差異不大，但對個別產業的影響卻很顯著。

The Department of Health in Taiwan announced that Taiwan wouldrequire mandatory labeling on the imported GM corns and GM soybeanson January 2003, and then extended the requirement to food with GMOingredients in 2004 and 2005. This paper adopts the love of varietyapproach to quantify the economic impacts of implementing this newmandatory traceable labeling policy.A multi-sectoral computable general equilibrium model is amendedby splitting the corn and soybeans into GM and non-GM varieties takinginto considerations of consumers’ preference change. The decision ofproducers and consumers to use GM vs. non-GM corn and soybeans intheir intermediate use or final consumption are endogenous. Theresults suggest that the impacts of mandatory traceable labeling policyare strongly influenced by consumer’s acceptance of GM foods.Although the labeling policy does not exert significant impact on theeconomy as a whole, the individual sectoral impacts are quite substantialand diverse.