Public risk management strategies and strategic investment choices: operators' commitment horizon and consumers' perception in the GMO production sector.

Summary Generally speaking, the economic analysis of inter-temporal investment choices made by a company aims to determine, according to the constraints on the deployment of the activity, an optimal investment rhythm. Within this general problem of inter-periodic investments, the article specifically examines the sequential programming of investments in an uncertain decision universe. The uncertainty considered relates to the choice of public management mechanisms for the environmental and sanitary risks that could be imputed to the products of these investments, or even to the investments themselves. To account for this uncertainty about the value of the project, the model considers a random variable called "social perception of the investment". This variable can influence public choices of risk management, and the choices made by the company and the public authorities. It can thus call into question the investment program adopted ex ante by the decision-makers in extenso, and affect the final surplus that the consumer gets from the innovation. The analysis is conducted to account for the situation encountered by an entrepreneur who undertakes an investment project to produce genetically modified organisms (GMOs).