Food safety, the media, and the information market

Availability of information has increased rapidly over the past decades. Yet, information on food safety is still considered problematic. Economists have extensively researched the effects of imperfect information. However, little attention has been paid to the institutional organization of the supply of information and the incentive schemes in the information market. This paper analyzes how and when information is supplied by media organizations, and what the implications are. We first develop a theoretical framework and afterwards provide empirical evidence from media coverage of two recent food safety crises in Europe.