We studied the protectionist character of a minimum quality standard (MQS). We show that in the fixed cost model where two firms, one local and one foreign, compete in a local market, the implementation of a MQS on the local market is a protectionist political only if the local firm supplies the...

In this paper, we analyze cases where consumers are aware of the existence of two qualities but do not know which firm sells the good one. We show that if the production of the high quality requires higher cost, its producer may be severly disadvantaged, even if the additional utility fully...

La littérature économique s'accorde pour dire que les qualités offertes sur un marché en concurrence imparfaite ne sont pas socialement optimales. En revanche, il existe un désaccord imporotant sur les issues d'une réglementation prenant la forme d'un standard de qualité minimale (SQM)....

Production and marketing lags in agri-food supply chains force competitive primary producers and food processors to commit to output targets before prices and exchange rates are realized. A theoretical model with one processor and many price-taking primary producers is developed to show that an...

In a vertically differentiated market with cost asymmetries, the risk dominance criterion selects the equilibrium where the high quality is produced by the efficient firm. We show that a sufficiently high Minimum Quality Standard reverses equilibrium selection. Hence, MQS may be used in order to...

This paper deals with the consequences of setting a label, on both firms?' price strategies in the case of credence goods. We demonstrate that the high quality firm may be better off in the absence of label.Classification JEL : D82, L15

While the economics literature generally agrees that imperfectly competitive firms do not make socially optimal quality choice, there is considerable controversy about the social impact of Minimum Quality Standard (mqs). In this survey, we show that the existence of a second firm is a necessary...

The existing literature on credence goods and expert services has overlooked the importance of risk aversion. In this paper we extend a standard expert model of credence goods with verifiable service quality by considering risk-averse consumers. Our results show that the presence of risk...

Assuming a fixed-proportion downstream production technology, partial forward integration by an upstream monopolist may be observed whether the monopolist is advantaged or disadvantaged cost-wise relative to fringe firms in the downstream market. Integration need not induce cost-predation and...