IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/umdrwp/28579.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quality Inspection, Adverse Selection And Trade In Perishable Commodities

Author

Listed:
  • Dimitri, Carolyn
  • Lichtenberg, Erik

Abstract

The quality of many goods and services may change randomly between the time of shipment and delivery, creating disputes over quality that can result in lemons-market equilibria. We investigate the potential of third-party inspections for such inefficiencies. We consider two types of inspection, ex post verification of quality in consignment contracts and ex ante certification in FOB contracts, which were instituted for fruits and vegetables in the U.S. when national markets were emerging. We show that both types of inspection can counteract misallocations of quality found in lemons-market equilibria. Buyers prefer ex post verification to ex ante certification while sellers prefer the reverse. Government provision of inspection services may be necessary for making provision of inspection services economically viable, and may be desirable for reducing inefficiencies due to the costliness of inspection. The U.S. experience may provide lessons for developing countries in creating marketing institutions to foster economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Dimitri, Carolyn & Lichtenberg, Erik, 2002. "Quality Inspection, Adverse Selection And Trade In Perishable Commodities," Working Papers 28579, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:umdrwp:28579
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.28579
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/28579/files/wp02-06.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.28579?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul R. Milgrom & Douglass C. North & Barry R. Weingast*, 1990. "The Role Of Institutions In The Revival Of Trade: The Law Merchant, Private Judges, And The Champagne Fairs," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 1-23, March.
    2. Choe, Chongwoo, 1998. "Contract design and costly verification games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 327-340, February.
    3. Reinganum, Jennifer F. & Wilde, Louis L., 1985. "Income tax compliance in a principal-agent framework," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 1-18, February.
    4. Leland, Hayne E, 1979. "Quacks, Lemons, and Licensing: A Theory of Minimum Quality Standards," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1328-1346, December.
    5. De, Sankar & Nabar, Prafulla, 1991. "Economic implications of imperfect quality certification," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 333-337, December.
    6. Dimitri, Carolyn, 2002. "Contract Evolution And Institutional Innovation: Marketing Pacific-Grown Apples From 1890 To 1930," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 189-212, March.
    7. Alessandro Lizzeri, 1999. "Information Revelation and Certification Intermediaries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(2), pages 214-231, Summer.
    8. Albano, Gian Luigi & Lizzeri, Alessandro, 2001. "Strategic Certification and Provision of Quality," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 42(1), pages 267-283, February.
    9. Townsend, Robert M., 1979. "Optimal contracts and competitive markets with costly state verification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 265-293, October.
    10. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    11. Mason, Charles F & Sterbenz, Frederic P, 1994. "Imperfect Product Testing and Market Size," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 35(1), pages 61-86, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dimitri, Carolyn & Lichtenberg, Erik, 2000. "Verification In Contracts With Random Changes In Quality," Working Papers 28565, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    2. Creane, Anthony & Jeitschko, Thomas D. & Sim, Kyoungbo, 2022. "Welfare effects of product certification under latent adverse selection," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    3. Omer Moav & Zvika Neeman, 2004. "Inspection in Markets for Experience Goods," Discussion Paper Series dp349, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    4. Erik Durbin, 2000. "McDonald's or the Michelin Guide? Revealing Quality Through Private-Sector Certification," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1097, Econometric Society.
    5. Dorothée Brécard, 2017. "Consumer misperception of eco-labels, green market structure and welfare," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 340-364, June.
    6. Konrad Stahl & Roland Strausz, 2017. "Certification and Market Transparency," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(4), pages 1842-1868.
    7. Xujin Pu & Huanzhen Zhang, 2016. "Voluntary Certification of Agricultural Products in Competitive Markets: The Consideration of Boundedly Rational Consumers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-13, September.
    8. Yokessa, Maïmouna & Marette, Stéphan, 2019. "A Review of Eco-labels and their Economic Impact," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 13(1-2), pages 119-163, April.
    9. W. Bentley MacLeod, 2006. "Reputations, Relationships and the Enforcement of Incomplete Contracts," CESifo Working Paper Series 1730, CESifo.
    10. Langinier Corinne & Babcock Bruce A., 2008. "Agricultural Production Clubs: Viability and Welfare Implications," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-31, December.
    11. Bénédicte Coestier & Nathalie Fombaron, 2003. "L'audit en assurance," THEMA Working Papers 2003-41, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    12. Strausz, Roland, 2005. "Honest certification and the threat of capture," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 45-62, February.
    13. Stéphan Marette & John Crespi, 2003. "Can Quality Certification Lead to Stable Cartels?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 23(1), pages 43-64, August.
    14. Gu, Yiquan, 2008. "Imperfect Certification," Ruhr Economic Papers 78, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    15. Camille Chaserant & Sophie Harnay, 2013. "The regulation of quality in the market for legal services: Taking the heterogeneity of legal services seriously," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 10(2), pages 267-291, August.
    16. Creane, Anthony & Jeitschko, Thomas D. & Sim, Kyoungbo, 2019. "Welfare effects of certification under latent adverse selection," DICE Discussion Papers 312, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    17. Choi, Jay Pil & Peitz, Martin, 2018. "You are judged by the company you keep: Reputation leverage in vertically related markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 351-379.
    18. Bizzotto, Jacopo & Harstad, Bård, 2023. "The certifier for the long run," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    19. Buehler, B. & Schuett, F., 2012. "Certification and Minimum Quality Standards when Some Consumers are Uninformed," Other publications TiSEM d181488a-ea27-42f7-a2e7-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Gary Biglaiser & Fei Li & Charles Murry & Yiyi Zhou, 2020. "Intermediaries and product quality in used car markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(3), pages 905-933, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    International Relations/Trade;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:umdrwp:28579. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/daumdus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.