It looks like it is not just consumers who are unable to make informed rational decisions when faced with technology. It appears that Indian cotton farmers have a similar problem when faced with choosing GM seed varieties. In this case as they would clearly wish to choose according to rational criteria, but they cannot.
Market failure
Market failures, actual and implied by regulatory interference
Technology drives consumers to irrationality
Technology, and the development of technological products, undermine free market mechanisms. One, of many, reasons for this is the problems consumers face in making a choice about purchases. Does this affect the assumption that consumers are able to make informed and rational decisions, which is required by the argument in favour of free markets? Continue reading
Drug patents: inefficient R & D funding
Patents allow pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs at several times the price they would be able to get in a competitive market. Only a small proportion of the extra money spent by the public goes into research and development (R & D), despite the latter being the supposed benefit of the higher prices. Continue reading
Bad incentives in drug development
The pharmaceutical industry would like you to believe that they fund the expensive development of new drugs, they get patents in return, and this provides a nice efficient market driven mechanism for developing new drugs. There are many things wrong with this picture: Continue reading