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Minimum Safety Standard, Consumers' Information, and Competition, The

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  • Stéphan Marette

Abstract

This paper explores the effects of a standard influencing care choice. Firm(s) may increase the probability of offering safe products by incurring a cost. Under duopoly, they compete either in prices or in quantities. Under perfect information about safety for consumers, the selected standard that corrects a safety underinvestment is always compatible with competition. Safety overinvestment only emerges under competition in quantities and relatively low values of the cost. Under imperfect information about safety for consumers, the standard leads to a monopoly situation. However, for relatively large values of the cost, a standard cannot impede the market failure coming from the lack of information.

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  • Stéphan Marette, 2007. "Minimum Safety Standard, Consumers' Information, and Competition, The," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 07-wp441, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    • Handle: RePEc:ias:cpaper:07-wp441
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    3. Rouviere, Elodie & Soubeyran, Raphael, 2008. "Collective Reputation, Entry and Minimum Quality Standard," Economic Theory and Applications Working Papers 6325, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    4. Olivier Bonroy & Christos Constantatos, 2015. "On the Economics of Labels: How Their Introduction Affects the Functioning of Markets and the Welfare of All Participants," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(1), pages 239-259.
    5. Rouviere, Elodie & Soubeyran, Raphael, 2008. "Collective Reputation, Entry and Minimum Safety Standard," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 44465, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
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    7. Irz, Xavier & Mazzocchi, Mario & Réquillart, Vincent & Soler, Louis-Georges, 2015. "Research in Food Economics: past trends and new challenges," Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement, Editions NecPlus, vol. 96(01), pages 187-237, March.
    8. Chen, Feng & Wu, Bin & Lou, Wenqian, 2021. "An evolutionary analysis on the effect of government policies on green R & D of photovoltaic industry diffusion in complex network," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    9. stephan marette, 2008. "Standards and Labels," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 12(2), pages 1-7.
    10. 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.
    11. Stéphan Marette & Jutta Roosen & Sandrine Blanchemanche, 2008. "Taxes and subsidies to change eating habits when information is not enough: an application to fish consumption," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 119-143, October.
    12. John C. Beghin & Anne-Celia Disdier & Stéphan Marette, 2017. "The Economics and Potential Protectionism of Food Safety Standards and Inspections: An Application to the U.S. Shrimp Market," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: John Christopher Beghin (ed.), Nontariff Measures and International Trade, chapter 13, pages 209-237, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    13. Sungho Yun, 2018. "Minimum safety standards with asymmetric safety costs," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 152-173, April.
    14. Lisa Chever & Michael Klien, 2018. "Trading service quality for safety: a cautionary tale from the French ‘Robien law’ on elevator safety," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 20-36, February.
    15. Yenipazarli, Arda, 2019. "Incentives for environmental research and development: Consumer preferences, competitive pressure and emissions taxation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 276(2), pages 757-769.
    16. Marette, Stephan, 2017. "Quality, market mechanisms and regulation in the food chain," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 5(3), February.
    17. Bonroy, Olivier & Lemarié, Stéphane, 2012. "Downstream labeling and upstream price competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 347-360.
    18. Marette, Stéphan & Messéan, Antoine & Millet, Guy, 2012. "Consumers’ willingness to pay for eco-friendly apples under different labels: Evidences from a lab experiment," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 151-161.
    19. Brishti Guha, 2017. "Moral hazard, Bertrand competition and natural monopoly," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 153-171, June.
    20. Ningzhou Shen & Yinghua Song & Dan Liu & Dalia Streimikiene, 2021. "Food Quality Competition Among Companies and Government Food Safety Supervision Under Asymmetric Product Substitution," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 23(56), pages 221-221, February.
    21. Fan, Ruguo & Bao, Xuguang & Du, Kang & Wang, Yuanyuan & Wang, Yitong, 2022. "The effect of government policies and consumer green preferences on the R&D diffusion of new energy vehicles: A perspective of complex network games," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(PA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    information; market structure; safety; standard.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy

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