Consumers are in general less informed than producers about the quality of agricultural goods. To reduce he information gap, consumers can rely on standards (e.g., certification) that ensure quality and origin of the goods. These costly standards can be adopted by a group of producers of...

We build a model of collective reputation under moral hazard to analyze incentives under collective reputation. Producers can produce high quality, but it is only imperfectly detected. Products not detected as of high quality are pooled by to the collective reputation structure. Collective...

Nonprofit organizations in transition countries experience low trust and consequently low income from donations. The study introduces one particular solution to the problem, ¨ certification, and examines its impact on the quality of the nonprofit organizations in the market. The situation is...

I compare certification and self-regulation, two widely used quality assurance mechanisms in markets where consumers do not observe the quality of goods. Certification is a mechanism in which an external firm oers a certificate to producers who undergo a testing procedure, issues the certificate...

Nonprofit organizations in transition countries experience low trust and consequently low income from donations. The study introduces one particular solution to the problem, ¨ certification, and examines its impact on the quality of the nonprofit organizations in the market. The situation is...

I compare certification and self-regulation, two widely used quality assurance mechanisms in markets where consumers do not observe the quality of goods. Certification is a mechanism in which an external firm offers a certificate to producers who undergo a testing procedure, issues the...

Google's new “Interest Based Advertising” (IBA) program represents the company's first foray into what is generally called “Online Behavioral Advertising”: In order to deliver more relevant advertising, Google will begin tailoring ads delivered through AdSense on the Google Content...

As digital technologies increase the occurrence of big bang disruptions across industries, companies old and new find they have less time both to profit from their own disruptor and to unleash the next one. This article describes the drivers of this phenomenon, and offers strategic responses...

The nature of disruptive innovation, first studied by Joseph Schumpeter, has changed dramatically in the wake of rapidly and predictably deflating costs for embedded digital technology. New disruptors now enter the marker both better and cheaper than existing products. The result is devastating...

Since the fall of 2008, a debate has raged in Washington over "targeted online advertising," shorthand for the customization of Internet ads to match the interests of users. Not only are these ads more relevant and therefore less annoying to Internet users than untargeted ads, they are more...