Masterful Meisters? Voluntary Certification and Quality in the German Crafts Sector

Kaja Fredriksen, Petrik Runst and Kilian Bizer

No 3 (2017), ifh Working Papers from Volkswirtschaftliches Institut für Mittelstand und Handwerk an der Universität Göttingen (ifh)

Abstract: Voluntary certification systems potentially reduce search costs in markets with imperfect information. Service markets with many heterogeneous firms – such as the crafts market – are prone to information imperfections and can therefore potentially benefit from such informational mechanisms. We examine if the Meister qualification in the German crafts sector improves service quality as perceived by consumers. We find a significant and positive relationship between the Meister title and consumer ratings and conclude that the certificate is a credible sign of quality.

Keywords: Transaction Costs; Search Costs; Voluntary Certification; Service Quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I28 J24 L51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017, Revised 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/191845/1/ifh-wp-03-2016-update.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:ifhwps:32017

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ifh Working Papers from Volkswirtschaftliches Institut für Mittelstand und Handwerk an der Universität Göttingen (ifh) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().