IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bol/bodewp/484.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effects of Minimum Quality Standards: Better or Worse Products?

Author

Abstract

In a duopoly where two firms products are differentiated both, horizontally and vertically, introduction of a quality standard affects equilibrium quality levels of both firms. The effects, furthermore, depend upon consumers being or not perfectly informed about qualities. Qualities are strategic substitutes and under perfect information only non-innocuous standards, i.e. above the lowest quality in an unregulated equilibrium, change the equilibrium. However, the average quality in the market may go down due to the standard, because the high quality firm will lower its own quality, and total consumers welfare may decrease. Under uncertainty, even innocuous standards, below the lowest unregulated equilibrium quality, may alter the equilibrium quality choices.

Suggested Citation

  • P. Garella, 2003. "The Effects of Minimum Quality Standards: Better or Worse Products?," Working Papers 484, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    • Handle: RePEc:bol:bodewp:484
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://amsacta.unibo.it/4810/1/484.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Crampes, Claude & Hollander, Abraham, 1995. "Duopoly and quality standards," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 71-82, January.
    2. Stefan Lutz & Thomas P. Lyon & John W. Maxwell, 2000. "Quality Leadership when Regulatory Standards are Forthcoming," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 331-348, September.
    3. Giulio Ecchia & Luca Lambertini, 1997. "Minimum Quality Standards and Collusion," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 101-113, March.
    4. Scarpa, Carlo, 1998. "Minimum quality standards with more than two firms1," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 665-676, September.
    5. 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.
    6. repec:bla:jindec:v:45:y:1997:i:1:p:101-13 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Maxwell, John W., 1998. "Minimum quality standards as a barrier to innovation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 355-360, March.
    8. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1979. "Price competition, quality and income disparities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 340-359, June.
    9. Boom, Anette, 1995. "Asymmetric International Minimum Quality Standards and Vertical Differentiation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 101-119, March.
    10. Uri Ronnen, 1991. "Minimum Quality Standards, Fixed Costs, and Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(4), pages 490-504, Winter.
    11. repec:bla:jindec:v:48:y:2000:i:3:p:331-48 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Garella, Paolo G., 2006. ""Innocuous" minimum quality standards," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 368-374, September.
    2. Paolo Garella & Emmanuel Petrakis, 2008. "Minimum quality standards and consumers’ information," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 36(2), pages 283-302, August.
    3. Jørgen Hansen & Jørgen Nielsen, 2009. "Dumping and Injury Margins in Markets with Horizontal as well as Vertical Product Differentiation," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 233-250, September.
    4. P. Garella, 2004. "Are "innocuous" Minimum Quality Standards really innocuous?," Working Papers 515, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    5. Jørgen Drud Hansen & Jørgen Ulff-Møller Nielsen, 2010. "Price as an Indicator for Quality in International Trade?," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 419-430, April.
    6. Davidson, Sinclair & Mohan, Vijay & Potts, Jason, 2020. "Location, taxation and governments: An exchange theory of intellectual property," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 266-283.

    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. Stefan Lutz & Mario Pezzino, 2012. "International Strategic Choice of Minimum Quality Standards and Welfare," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(4), pages 594-613, July.
    2. Paolo Garella & Emmanuel Petrakis, 2008. "Minimum quality standards and consumers’ information," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 36(2), pages 283-302, August.
    3. Olivier Bonroy, 2006. "Le standard de qualité minimale est-il un instrument socialement optimal ?. Une revue de littérature," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 57(1), pages 35-53.
    4. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz & Stefan Lutz, 2010. "Pre-emption, Predation, and Minimum Quality Standards," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 111-123.
    5. Pei‐Cheng Liao, 2008. "A Note On Market Coverage In Vertical Differentiation Models With Fixed Costs," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 27-44, January.
    6. S Lutz, 2005. "Regulatory Standards Can Lead to Predation," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0509, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    7. Garella, Paolo G., 2006. ""Innocuous" minimum quality standards," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 368-374, September.
    8. Eric Giraud-Héraud & Cristina Grazia & Abdelhakim Hammoudi, 2012. "Explaining the Emergence of Private Standards in Food Supply Chains," Working Papers hal-00749345, HAL.
    9. Min Chen & Konstantinos Serfes, 2012. "Minimum quality standard regulation under imperfect quality observability," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 269-291, April.
    10. Dimitra Petropoulou, 2008. "International Trade, Minimum Quality Standards and the Prisoners' Dilemma," CEP Discussion Papers dp0858, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Lander Beloqui & Jose M. Usategui, 2004. "Overcompliance with minimum quality standards," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 28(2), pages 233-255, May.
    12. P. Garella, 2004. "Are "innocuous" Minimum Quality Standards really innocuous?," Working Papers 515, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    13. S Lutz, 2005. "Can a Tariff on Foreign Competition Harm the Domestic Industry?," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0510, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    14. Ahmed, Rasha & Segerson, Kathleen, 2011. "Collective voluntary agreements to eliminate polluting products," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 572-588, September.
    15. Stéphan Marette, 2007. "Minimum safety standard, consumers’ information and competition," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 259-285, December.
    16. Dimitra Petropoulou, 2013. "Vertical product differentiation, minimum quality standards, and international trade," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 65(2), pages 372-393, April.
    17. Rasha Ahmed & Kathleen Segerson, 2006. "Collective Voluntary Agreements and the Production of Less Polluting Products," Working papers 2006-18, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised May 2007.
    18. Stefan Napel & Gunnar Oldehaver, 2011. "A dynamic perspective on minimum quality standards under Cournot competition," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 29-49, February.
    19. Stefan Napel & Gunnar Oldehaver, 2007. "Static Costs vs. Dynamic Benefits of a Minimum Quality Standard under Cournot Competition," Discussion Papers 23, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    20. Lambertini, Luca, 1999. "Endogenous timing and the choice of quality in a vertically differentiated duopoly," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 101-109, March.

    More about this item

    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:bol:bodewp:484. 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: Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sebolit.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.